Tony Snow embarasses himself. In his frustration with those damn Democrats in Congress, he declares they should “throw off election-season blinders and join us in finishing what the surge has begun.”
Uh, begun what? The invasion set in motion and the surge continued a bloodbath, right? A civil war? So to show the Democrats up and save face politically, the administration wants to keep sending American troops into a bloodbath? When administration policies have a history of costly failure? Hard to understand the logic of Snow's professional optimism, even in the light of the White House's resolutely dedicated partisanship.
The White House plans to use a report next month assessing progress in Iraq to outline a plan for gradual troop reductions beginning next year that would fall far short of the drawdown demanded by Congressional opponents of the war, according to administration and military officials.
One administration official made it clear that the goal of the planned announcement was to counter public pressure for a more rapid reduction and to try to win support for a plan that could keep American involvement in Iraq on “a sustainable footing” at least through the end of the Bush presidency.
The officials said the White House would portray its approach as a new strategy for Iraq, a message aimed primarily at the growing numbers of Congressional Republicans who have criticized President Bush’s handling of the war. Many Republicans have urged Mr. Bush to unveil a new strategy, and even to propose a gradual reduction of American troops to the levels before this year’s troop increase — about 130,000 — or even lower to head off Democratic-led efforts to force the withdrawal of all combat forces by early next year.
Nice photographs of American soldiers helping Iraqi children do not help to erase from our minds the point blank shooting of small babies. Hopeful statements of generals (how else would we expect them to speak?) do not drown out the sights and sounds of a massive increase in violence and death.
Tony Snow, who has the one of the most powerful microphones around, cannot make the administration sound wise when it plainly has never cared about anything more than its own future. So he tries to push back withdrawal -- a sign of failure -- and blames the rest of us for not believing!
Senior administration officials are already making a stark case against any congressionally mandated withdrawal of troops. Arguing in a speech in New York on Thursday that chaos would follow an American withdrawal, the White House press secretary, Tony Snow, pointedly accused Democrats of ignoring positive developments on the ground in Iraq in their haste to end the American involvement.
“Unfortunately, a number of key Democrats, having perused polls indicating that the public has grown impatient or discontented with the war, have refused to contemplate victory,” Mr. Snow said in the speech, at the Union League Club.
Believe in us, cries Tony Tinkerbell! Uh-huh. Sure...
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