Some observations on the Iraq Study Group (ISG)/ James Zogby

[TexasLawyer]

James Zogby Fri Dec 8, 7:02 PM ET

Some observations on the Iraq Study Group (ISG):

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Will Bush buy it?

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In the week leading up to the ISG release, the White House engaged in a bit of old fashioned "razzle dazzle" in order, I believe, to distract attention from the report. Given the fact that just one month ago, the Bush Administration was "staying the course," and not much else, the hyperactivity of recent weeks has been striking.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld resigned; Bush traveled to Jordan to meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki; a number of internal secret memos have been leaked, revealing the deep concerns of key Bush Administration officials about the war effort; and the president has authorized both the Department of Defense and the National Security Council to undertake reviews of their own.

All of this, I believe, has been done in order to dilute the impact of the ISG report and allow the president to choose from a menu of options more to his liking. To make it perfectly clear, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley said earlier this week, "The (ISG) report will be an important input, but as you would expect (the president) is going to get inputs from a number of sources."

For his part, President Bush said much the same: "One of the key points is that I'm getting a lot of advice documents ... these are frank assessments by different members of my Administration ... my attitude is I ought to absorb and listen to everything that's being said." What all this appears to be setting the stage for is confusion, obfuscation and more of the same.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20061209/cm_huffpost/035904

[KT2000]

1. The Iraq Study Group

has established a goal that is not satisfactory to bush. The reporters need to drill that twerp at every press conference to articulate his goal. His feet must be held to the fire until he fesses up on what his real goals are for Iraq.

That is where we are now - they have to push his back up against the wall until he is absolutely clear about what "winning" means. If not, we have to put up with "more of the same."

[ninkasi]

2. What the elder Bush

and James Baker need to realize, is that Lord Pissypants will not do anything except what HE wants to do. I know he is famous for not reading, but even so, some of the opinions of millions of Americans who think we should withdraw from Iraq will do nothing but make him more stubborn.

Nothing, including the lives and deaths of hundreds of thousands, matter so much to him as having his own way, and what he mistakenly thinks his legacy as a "war president" will be. This man/boy was not raised properly. He has never had to pay a price for his mistakes, and learn from them, as the rest of us has done. Because he has never faced the consequences of failure, he is unable to correctly predict what his horribly flawed presidency will mean to history.

He will go down in history as the worst American president, and unless we're lucky, the man who caused the destruction of our Constitution, and our democracy. We have a better chance of salvaging America now that we are in control on Congress. I pray that our leaders will use this chance wisely.

[terisan]

3. Seems to fit his Pattern-Tabled the Terrorism Report in Spring 2001

IIRC when the bipartisan Hart-Rudman Commission report on
terrorism and homeland security was delivered to Bush early in
2001, and delivered with a great sense of urgency he said he
needed his own study. Instead of implementing its
recommendations he said he wanted VP Cheney to head a task
force on terrorism which would come up with new
recommendations. 
I believe Cheney never convened that task force-busy as he was
with his secret Energy task force.

....and, of course, there was the delay on Katrina.......

I think  Bush intends to let bad things continue to happen.