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My personal musings about anything that gets on my radar screen--heavily dominated by politics.

2007-01-09

Reasons for Pessimism

I've written a lot in recent days and weeks about what I hope the President will say and what I think the President should say in his prime time speech tomorrow night.

Some of the news from today makes me skeptical that he will say anything of the sort.

First, from the AP:

The first of up to 20,000 additional U.S. troops will move into Iraq by month's end under President Bush's new war plan, a senior defense official said Tuesday. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pledged to hold a vote on the increase, which many Democrats oppose.

On its face, as I've said before, I don't think sending in more troops in and of itself is a bad idea. But, so far the units set to deploy seem to be more "big army" than SpecOps, and there's no indication that the Rules of Engagement are likely to change, so I really don't think this is going to change much. Except provide the terrorists with more targets to shoot at.

Second, via Powerline:

William James Haynes, William Myers, and Terrence Boyle reportedly have told the White House they do not wish to be renominated to the federal judiciary. Another nominee, Michael Wallace, recently withdrew.

I seem to remember getting involved in the 2000 and 2004 campaigns for Bush specifically because of the issue of judges. The President wasn't willing over the last couple years to fight forcefully for his judges--which WAS a winning issue with the electorate; under what circumstances should we expect that he'll fight for Iraq--which is NOT a particularly winning issue at this time ?

And, thirdly, from Hugh Hewitt:

[The full extent of Berger's document removal, however, is not known, and never can be known. The Justice Department cannot be sure that berger did not remove original documents for which there were no copies or inventory. On three of Berger's four visits to the Archives, he had access to such documents.]

Berger should have been prosecuted to the full extent of the law, and certainly should not now be appearing on panels to proclaim his vision of America's national security policy.

Be very clear WHY Sandy Berger was not prosecuted to the full extent of the law: because the Bush Justice Department did not push the case. Hell, the Bush campaign did not even make a sufficient play of this information to discredit the 9/11 Commission and the Democrats in the last two election cycles.

Oh-for-three in today's news cycle. Given the President's--shall we say . . .--lack of rhetorical polish, I'm not particularly hopeful that tomorrow night's speech is likely to end the slump.
Posted by: Michael / 1/09/2007 11:22:00 PM

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