WASHINGTON POST LETS WHITE HOUSE DISTANCE ITSELF FROM "STAY THE COURSE" RHETORIC.
This borders on the surreal. From today's
WaPo:
Many Democrats accuse the president of advocating "stay the course" in Iraq, but the White House rejects the phrase and regularly emphasizes that it is adapting tactics to changing circumstances, such as moving more U.S. troops into Baghdad recently after a previous security strategy appeared to fail.
Democrats accuse the President of advocating "stay the course" in Iraq? The President's constant assertion that we should "stay the course" in Iraq is a matter of objective fact, not of partisan accusation. And why no fact-check of the White House's "rejection" of the phrase? The White House doesn't reject the phrase. At all.
Indeed, the last time President
Bush advocated staying the course in just those words was...yesterday:
August 30, 2006:
"We will
stay the course, we will help this young Iraqi democracy succeed and victory in Iraq will be a major ideological triumph in the struggle of the 21st century."
This shouldn't need pointing out, but "stay the course" has of course been a Bush stock phrase for years now.
August 5, 2005:
We will
stay the course. We will complete the job in Iraq. And the job is this, we'll help the Iraqis develop a democracy.
April 13, 2004:
And my message today to those in Iraq is: We'll
stay the course; we'll complete the job. My message to our troops is: We will
stay the course and complete the job and you'll have what you need.
July 10, 2003:
A free Iraq will mean a peaceful world. And it's very important for us to
stay the course, and we will
stay the course.
In fairness, there's some good stuff in the
WaPo piece, too, but this is just sloppy. With the White House about to unleash another major
"public relations offensive" on Iraq, reporters are about to get hit with another relentless fusillade of official lying, and much of it will be of the "we-aren't-advocating-stay-the-course" variety. How will the press handle it? At a moment when Dems are aggressively challenging the GOP over Iraq, it's understandable that White House officials would be desperate to avoid accountability for their own past statements and actions, but that doesn't mean the big news orgs should help them do it.
Relatedly,
Atrios notes that
Ken Mehlman has been "berating" media figures for holding the administration accountable for its own words. It looks as if
WaPo has gotten Mehlman's memo.
http://www.prospect.org/horsesmouth/2006/08/post_319.htmlWhere did anyone get the idea that the White House supports a “stay the course” strategy?
White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, 8/17/06: “(Y)ou…cannot be a President in a wartime and not realize that you’ve got to
stay the course.”
Snow, 8/16/06: “(T)hat’s why the President is determined to
stay the course.”
President Bush, 7/11/06: “As a matter of fact, we will win in Iraq so long as we
stay the course.”
Vice President Cheney, 6/6/06: “(W)e have to
stay the course.”
People who say the Bush administration wants to “stay the course” in Iraq are not making an accusation, as today’s Washington Post suggests. They are telling the truth.
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/08/31/stay-the-course