posted by Damozel |
Senator Voinovich is urging Rove to help salvage the President's legacy. Well, why not? As this blog's official God-botherer, I believe in miracles and love a redemption story.
Senator Voinovich (R-Ohio) has told Karl Rove that Bush must act quickly "to develop a strategy for withdrawing U.S. troops that will be ready in time for a September progress report on the military surge from Gen. David Petraeus"....or Republicans are going to start breaking ranks for real. (CNN) He said to Rove, he said:
The president is a young man and should think about his legacy.” He should know history will not be kind unless he can come up with a plan that protects the troops and stabilizes the region. (CNN)
I'm not sure what his being "young" has to do with it, unless what Voinovich means is that Rove should think about W's going to feel 20 years from now when his name is still a hissing and a byword. Busssssh! But why would he care about that, when he doesn't care now?
Republicans, says Voinovich, "are close to speaking out." (CNN) He would like Bush to "come together" with both Republicans and Democrats to solve this problem. In June, he urged Bush to move toward "a decrease in U.S. military engagement, coupled with a “surge” in diplomatic engagement." As this is broadly similar to the policy the UK's Iraq Commission is recommending to Gordon Brown, it seems to be rather timely advice. (Independent) But will Bush accept it?
Voinovich evidently believes he's been heard.
“I got into this to get them to move, and they’re moving,” said Voinovich, who is pushing for the president to put together a workable plan for withdrawing U.S. troops that will be ready in time for a September progress report on the military surge from Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq.
“I really think that they understand,” said Voinovich. “We’ll see by September what they put together. But the main thing is were running out of time — we should take advantage of this time.”(CNN)
But what about this (which I found via Sadly, No!)? This is from Friday night.
Forget the leaks and the speculation, President George W. Bush is not looking for a way out of the surge and the Iraq war. In a session with about ten conservative journalists Friday afternoon, a confident and determined president made it clear that he is going to see the surge through, and will rely on General David Petraeus’s advice on how to proceed come September, regardless of the political climate in Washington....
He scoffed at reports to the contrary in the press. When specifically asked about a Washington Post article this week reporting that his administration is looking for a way to draw down, President Bush said dismissively, “I didn’t read it,” and then, “there are a lot of talkers in Washington.” When it was pointed out that the sources were people in his administration, he repeated, just as dismissively, “That’s what I said, there are a lot of talkers." He said that not everyone gets to talk to him: “I’m not on the phone chatting up with these people writing these articles, ascribing motives to me.”
The president made his intentions clear Friday afternoon. He’s not going to abandon the surge, despite all the talk of his administration being willing to move to the Iraq Study Group model of the Iraq war. He views “this period as fundamental for deciding whether or not this nation is going to be secure throughout a lot of the 21st century. And therefore when it comes to the war in Iraq, as you know, I made a decision not to leave but to put more in, and I will support our troops and support Gen. Petraeus, his plan.”
“The ideal world,” he adds, “is that there would be some bipartisan consensus at some point in time to be there for a while. Can we achieve that? I don’t know. It’s worth trying. It’s worth talking to people about it.” But referring back to his statements in support of the surge, he said, with emphasis in his voice, “It’s very important for you all to understand that that’s exactly what I mean.”
Pressed on whether the surge can be sustained despite all the difficulties, he said, “That’s the challenge, but I’m optimistic about it.” (NRO; emphasis mine)
After all, it was Rove who Voinovich spoke to, not the President. And it doesn't look as if W is listening to the doubters and the haters and the renegade Republicans. For example, Voinovich seems to believe that Bush has (to quote CNN precisely) "f***ed up the war." (CNN) Judging by the National Review Online article, it seems that Bush would beg to differ. Yep, look at it: right at the top of the page, it gives the date and time of this interview: "July 13, 2007 6:45 PM." (NRO)
So I'm guessing that the only option left to all these seething Republicans is open rebellion. Let the Wild Rumpus begin!
And the only hope for Bush's "legacy" is....that he turns out to have been right about Iraq. So: not much hope. Busssssh!
PS. Re: Voinovich's "private" statement about Bush's conduct of the war, I'd like to quote (somewhat out of context) Matt Yglesias: "The trouble, however, is this. When George W. Bush is president and is advocating a war and you, too, are advocating for war, then the fact of the matter is that you are advocating that the war be conducted by George W. Bush. That Bush would botch things was a perfectly predictable consequence of said support, based on -- among other things -- the fact that he'd botched everything else he'd ever done." (Matt Yglesias, Stuck in the Middle with Me)
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