If Mr. Bush cannot acknowledge flaws in his policy, how can he fix them?

[dajoki]

NYT
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/07/opinion/07fri2.html?th&emc=th

President Bush's Major Speech: Sounding Old Themes on Iraq

Published: October 7, 2005

We've lost track of the number of times President Bush has told Americans to ignore their own eyes and ears and pretend everything is going just fine in Iraq. Yesterday, when Mr. Bush added a ringing endorsement of his own policy to his speech on terrorism, it was that same old formula: the wrong questions, the wrong answers and no new direction.

Mr. Bush suggested that people who doubt that nation-building is going well are just confusing healthy disagreement with dangerous division. "We've heard it suggested that Iraq's democracy must be on shaky ground because Iraqis are arguing with one another," he scoffed. What he failed to acknowledge was that the Iraqi power groups seem prepared to go through the motions of democracy only as long as their side wins.

<<snip>>

Americans want to believe that there is light at the end of the tunnel in Iraq, and Mr. Bush offered quite a bit. "Area by area, city by city, we're conducting offensive operations to clear out enemy forces and leaving behind Iraqi units to prevent the enemy from returning," he said. Best of all, there were "more than 80 Iraqi Army battalions fighting the insurgency alongside our forces." Unfortunately, the real questions are how many of the cleared-out towns actually stay clear once American troops have gone, and how many Iraqi units are capable of fighting on their own, without American soldiers at their side. In both cases, the answers are far more dismal than Mr. Bush suggested.

As a candidate, Mr. Bush got a lot of mileage out of offering the same simple, positive thoughts over and over. But now the nation doesn't need more specious theories about why the invasion was a good idea and cheery assurances that the original plan is still working. If Mr. Bush still cannot acknowledge the flaws in his policy, how can he fix them?

[ananda]

1. * is just following government policy of:

If it ain't broke, fix it till it is.

[dajoki]

2. and if it is broke...

fuck it up some more. what a bunch of morons, every last one of them.

[Ron Green]

3. Likewise, if he can't acknowledge his own personal flaws, how can be fully

human, which means to change and to grow?

He's an empty shell.

[dajoki]

7. a broken empty shell at that n/t

[Lexingtonian]

4. fix something?

We're talking Republicans here. Since when have they wanted to fix anything other than roulette tables and World Series?

[dajoki]

8. and elections

[jody]

5. If it's not broke, why would he want to fix it?

:sarcasm:

[dajoki]

6. so he could ruin it...

and spin it to his advantage.