E&P: Columnist Barnicle Joins MSNBC's Scarborough In Expressing Alarm About Bush and Iraq [View All]

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Editor&Publisher: Columnist Barnicle Joins Scarborough In Expressing Alarm About Bush and Iraq
By E&P Staff
Published: December 21, 2006

NEW YORK -- MSNBC host, and former GOP congressman, Joe Scarborough, was once a strong supporter of the Iraq and the President, but he has turned harshly critical of both in recent weeks. This may have reached a climax of sorts on Wednesday night, when he welcomed, among others, Boston newspaper columnist Mike Barnicle to talk about the president's latest statements on Iraq, which seemed to suggest that he was no longer listening to his generals (as he once said he always did).

This caused all of the guests, as well as the host, to suggest that Bush may be turning "delusional," with Barnicle going so far as stating that perhaps the generals need a new commander-in-chief soon. Scarborough agreed, saying it was "uncharted territory" and "very frightening." Bush, he added, is "standing alone! He just doesn‘t seem to have any credibility. And this is extraordinarily disturbing to me, as a guy who supported this war and supported this president twice."

Here are excerpts from the chat, with Barnicle at center stage.

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SCARBOROUGH: Well, Mike Barnicle, as you know, I supported this war and I supported this man twice for president, and yet I‘m growing more disturbed every night by how isolated George W. Bush has become. All the Joint Chiefs oppose his plan for Iraq. His lead general opposes his plan in Iraq, and now he‘s going to quit because Bush has ignored him. Colin Powell opposes his plan in Iraq. And an “L.A. Times” poll is showing that only 12 percent of Americans support his plan for more troops in Iraq. Shouldn‘t more Americans be disturbed at this unprecedented example of a White House that‘s in—and you can only call it this—a bunker mentality?

MIKE BARNICLE: Well, I think, Joe, that more Americans ought to be truly depressed by what they saw today on TV, the latest press conference. We have a president of the United States who is isolated. He‘s delusional. He is stubborn. He has had one intervention that clearly didn‘t work, the Baker-Hamilton report. He is clearly in need of another intervention.

You don‘t have to be von Clausewitz to figure out that urban warfare in the city of Baghdad, comparably the size of New York City, a tremendously hostile environment now, will become even more hostile with the introduction of more American troops. It will do very little, if nothing, to lessen the level of violence in Baghdad....

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