"Dedicated to exposing the lies and impeachable offenses of George W. Bush"


Bush Attack Against Democrats: Clean up the mess I created
Washington Post
By Dan Froomkin Special to washingtonpost.com Friday, November 3, 2006; 1:20 PM

President Bush's foremost political liability going into the mid-term elections is that the American people aren't happy he took the nation to war in Iraq and don't believe he has a way out.

In other words, they think Bush made a mess and has no idea how to clean it up.

Now, in what may be the ultimate show of Karl Rovian chutzpah, Bush is righteously attacking Democrats for not having a plan to clean up the mess he himself made.

It's a classic Rove technique to attack his opponents' strengths from a position of weakness -- no matter how deficient his own candidate's position may be.

But in this case, the public seems to have already reached some pretty definite conclusions.

According to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll , only 26 percent of Americans think Bush has "developed a clear plan for dealing with the situation in Iraq." A resounding 69 percent don't believe he has a clear plan at all (not to mention a good one.)

And while Democrats have not united behind any one course of action in Iraq, the public does seem to have a pretty good idea about what they'll do if they take control of Congress.

Some 41 percent think Democrats will try to decrease the number of troops in Iraq, and another 40 percent think Democrats will try to remove all troops from Iraq. That's 81 percent in all who seem convinced that Democrats will try to reverse Bush's "stay the course" strategy, and start bringing the troops home.

The New Offensive

Here's the text of Bush's speech yesterday in Nevada: "Oh, I've heard the Democrats. I'm sure you have, too. If you listen for their plan on Iraq, they don't have one. On this crucial issue facing the country, they don't have a plan for victory. And I want to remind our fellow citizens, harsh criticism and second-guessing is not a plan."

Here's Tony Snow on CNN yesterday, talking to Wolf Blitzer: "What's interesting in this political season, Wolf, is you can ask about the president's conduct in the war, but there's also an interesting issue that I think people are going to consider between now and Election Day, which is who is actually talking about winning this war?

"Because Democrats took the calculated position going into this campaign that they'd spend their time talking about how much they didn't like George W. Bush. And there's been a concerted effort to go after the president and it has worked. . . .

"[B]ut on the other hand, is that really, do you really want to say, OK, I've called the president some bad names, so let me lead you. I don't think so."

And here's the text of Bush's speech this morning in Missouri: "So far the Democrats have refused to tell us their plan on how they're going to secure the United States. There's still four days left before the election, and there's still time for the Democrats to tell the American people their plan to prevail in this war on terror.

"So if you happen to bump into a Democrat candidate, you might want to ask this simple question: What's your plan? If they say they want to protect the homeland, but oppose the Patriot Act, ask them this question: What's your plan? (Laughter.) If they say they want to uncover terrorist plots, but oppose listening in on terrorist conversations, ask them this question: What's your plan? If they say they want to stop new attacks on our country, but oppose letting the CIA detain and question the terrorists who might know what those plots are, ask them this question: What's your plan? If they say they want to win the war on terror, but call for America to pull out from what al Qaeda says is the central front in this war, ask them this question: What's your plan?

"AUDIENCE: What's your plan?"

Bush, of course, was mischaracterizing the Democratic position on listening in on terrorist conversations and interrogation of terror suspects. Democrats support both -- just not the way Bush goes about them.

David Espo writes for the Associated Press: "'The White House seems to be playing into our hands,' [Sen. Chuck Schumer, chairman of the Democratic Senate campaign organization] told reporters as part of a bullish preview of the Democrats' prospects for Senate races.

"'In an effort to strengthen their base, they keep reminding the public that there's not going to be any change in Iraq,' he said, referring to Bush's statement on Wednesday that he wants Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to remain in office through the end of his term."

Editorials From Unlikely Places

From an editorial in Norfolk's Virginian-Pilot : "The administration is masterful at crafting rhetorical choices that leave any rational listener with only one option. Still, saying that the Democratic Party favors a terrorist victory in Iraq demonstrates how far the White House must now go to make its failures look good by comparison. . . .

"It is increasingly clear that the forces of good are losing to sectarian civil war, and have even lost the support of the corrupt and ineffective government. There are insufficient Iraqi troops and police to keep people safe, and no will to employ them.

"Still, it is the Democrats, the president says, who don't know what to do about Iraq. 'I want you,' he said to voters in Indiana 'to think about the Democrat plan for success: There isn't one.'

"It is the Democrats, he says, who will lose Iraq if they win next week. But, as has become clear in the past four years, at a cost of more than 2,800 Americans, Democrats can't possibly lose peace and democracy in Iraq. The Bush administration already has."

Bush Plan in Flux?

And for those 29 percent who think Bush does have a plan? This just in: It may be changing.

David Ignatius writes in his Washington Post opinion column: "Following Tuesday's elections, President Bush will face some of the most difficult decisions of his presidency as he struggles to craft a strategy for dealing with the ruinous mess in Iraq. . . .

"The coming policy debate will . . . involve basic conflicts that have emerged in the past year over Middle East strategy -- for which the rough Beltway shorthand would be Condoleezza Rice's State Department vs. the office of Vice President Cheney.

"The central question for Bush . . . : Is America's best hope for stabilizing Iraq a broad effort to resolve tensions in the Middle East, including the Arab-Israeli dispute? This comprehensive regional approach to Iraq is controversial for two reasons: The United States would have to engage Iraq's troublesome neighbors, Iran and Syria; and it would have to push Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians as part of a broader peace deal."

Stump Watch

Here's the text of Bush's speech in Montana yesterday.

Peter Baker writes in The Washington Post: "President Bush warned Thursday that a Democratic Senate would block many of his judicial nominees and never allow justices such as John G. Roberts Jr. and Samuel A. Alito Jr. onto the Supreme Court, a message intended to win back his restive conservative base. . . .

"The visit to Montana opened a six-day, 10-state final campaign swing for the president as he left Washington for the last time until Tuesday's elections. . . .

"A Republican president normally would not need to come to a conservative bastion such as Montana this close to an election, nor to Nevada's 2nd District, which has never voted for a Democrat since it was created in 1982. But Bush is playing defense in red-state territory and sticking to states that voted for him two years ago."

Jim Rutenberg writes in the New York Times: "If there is one thing the White House can usually count on when President Bush campaigns in small, Republican-leaning cities like this one, it is friendly wall-to-wall news coverage of his arrival. And his visit here on Thursday did make the front page of The Billings Gazette.

"But news of his impending arrival took second billing in the paper. It ran below the fold and under a package of articles about the return of a local sailor's body from Iraq, accompanied by a photograph of the flag-draped coffin at Billings Logan International Airport. . . .

"During the last two elections, the fumes of Air Force One worked like political magic dust for the candidates lucky enough to score visits from Mr. Bush.

"Candidates flew to Washington just to be seen arriving back home on his 747. Local newspapers doubled as welcome mats, and television reporters and radio hosts excitedly echoed his verbal jabs at Democrats long after he had left."

Careful White House stagecraft still makes maximal use of Air Force One, however, which Mark Silva , blogging for the Chicago Tribune, correctly calls "a heckuva prop."

The White House used the plane as a backdrop for Bush's talk in Nevada yesterday. Silva describes "White House press office people politely but furtively asking arriving reporters and photographers to move out of the path of 'the picture' of the president and his plane."

Nedra Pickler writes for the Associated Press that Bush "made one gaffe in Montana that may be a sign of the toll of frequent campaign trips. He spoke of the lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001, at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Lancaster, Pa. Lancaster is 165 miles east of where United Flight 93 crashed into a field in Shanksville, killing everyone on board."

Original Text

Commentary: