Bush, The Course He Wants To Stay On, and Blah3

Several good posts up around Blogtopia (yes, Skippy coined that phrase!), so let me start with Stranger at Blah3:

So, Bush is calling in the media to pull his ass out of the electoral fire. I'll emphasise one stence in the lede of this Reuters story in order to posit a question.

American radio talk-show hosts have become frontline warriors in a drive by President George W. Bush and his Republicans to pull off a surprise and maintain control of Congress in November 7 elections.

In the face of opinion polls favoring Democrats and bad news from Iraq, Bush turned to the powerful hosts of talk radio two weeks before Americans elect 435 representatives to the U.S. House and a third of the 100-member Senate.

On Tuesday the White House invited more than three dozen hosts from both sides of the political spectrum so they could interview top administration officials.

Okay, the question is an obvious one - if the hosts invited were from 'both sides,' can anyone tell me who showed up from our side? Anyone from Air America? Ed Schultz? Stephanie Miller?

Just who was invited from our side? I'll note that the only radio hack - erm, talk show host - interviewed in the story was that moron Sean Hannity, who appeared at a GOP rally in Cleveland.

And from Invictus also of Blah3:

lAs I watched Bush give his "won't leave until the job is done" speech this morning, I couldn't help but wonder why in the world the job isn't yet done? Bush's speech would have been perfectly suited for summer or fall of 2003 when we'd reached Rumsfeld's outer bound of six months (not yet known at that time as a "Friedman"). But it's not the summer or fall of 2003. It's almost winter 2006. And Bush is talking now as if he's been in a cryogenic freeze for the past three years and thinks the war in Iraq is only several months -- not several years -- old. Doesn't it go without saying that we should be flexible in our tactics and changing them if and when necessary to defeat our enemies? If we haven't been doing that all along, then I've got some serious concerns about our military leaders.

And we all know damn well the job will never be done on Bush's watch. There is no chance whatsoever we'll be out of there before the 2008 elections, which means that Bush will ride off into the sunset forever claiming that he did what needed to be done and, more importantly, that if (read: when) it doesn't work out according to what had been his plan (assuming he ever had one), well, hey, don't blame me, it's the next guy's fault.

And what meaning do the "benchmarks" have that we've supposedly given the Iraqis? Why should they care? Bottom line is they know we're "not leaving until the job is done," so if we tell them they've got to be providing five hours per day of electricity to their people by March 2007, and they're not, what are the consequences? None, that's what. The "benchmarks" are bullshit because everyone knows damn well we're not going anywhere.

Today's speech was a lame attempt to salvage something -- anything -- in the critical final days before the nation goes to the polls. There was nothing even remotely new or impressive about what Bush had to say. It was just more of the same.