Two things in this NYTimes story shout out at me:

[applegrove]

President Uses a Quiet Vacation to Prepare His Agenda for 2006

By DAVID E. SANGER
January 1, 2006
White House Memo - New York Times




"
...SNIP

"We've listened to our critics and are already pursuing many of their proposals," he insisted, though he drew the line, as Mr. Bush has, at pulling out troops prematurely. Mr. Bush is expected to hit the same themes.

After his days of silence here, Mr. Bush on Saturday began to give the country a taste of the tone he has in mind. In his New Year's radio address he argued that in Iraq, American forces were "overcoming earlier setbacks" - another reference to errors in Iraq since the invasion that he was long loath to acknowledge.

But he began to do so last month, a decision that White House officials now boast was the key to reversing the worst slide in his approval ratings since the beginning of his presidency. Mr. Bush also said that after the Dec. 15 Iraqi election, whose results are still in flux, the country was on its way to "an inclusive, unified and lasting democracy."

....Snip

Others agree. "I think that the Democrats made a huge miscalculation with the Murtha speech; it moved the debate from 'Did the president lie?' to 'What do we do now?' " said Charles Cook, who publishes an independent political newsletter. "And that moved the spotlight from a horrible place for the president to not a bad place at all."

... SNIP"

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/01/politics/01bush.html?pagewanted=print


1) Who boasts about finally telling the truth? As if it is some sort of brilliant new strategy on par with lying.

2) Murtha seemed to have made the speech out of empathy for the military - not something that was a strategy. Somehow that is ignored. Or strategically wrong.


:shrug:

[C_U_L8R]

1. And it doesn't erase the fact that...

Bush lied and he continues to lie

He ain't outta the bushes yet (ewww bad pun bad bad bad)

[applegrove]

2. Somehow Dems are dumb ducks for not stragegizing over a desperate

call for supporting the troops with REALITY as opposed to making them fight in the middle of myth - which I would think would be very difficult indeed, as Murtha thought.

[Flabbergasted]

3. But it seems to

[radio4progressives]

4. bush licking bastards at the NYT

i'm sick of these assholes, there needs to be a huge boycott of this paper.

[Catrina]

7. Couldn't agree more, and I am already boycotting it.

This kind of 'reporting' is just sickening. Do they think we are all stupid? Trying to make it seem that Democrats failed in some imaginary strategy, while the brilliant Bush is really the winner here?? But who believes anything they have to say anymore? They have and continue to lose credibility every day.

As for trying to tell us that what we have seen with our own eyes is not what we really saw, they need to give up that game. Their strategy isn't working. Bush is a dangerous failure and Murtha took him publicly to task, and all their propaganda, their attempt to thrash Murtha (does the NYT remember that at all?) failed, because the American people sided with Murtha and the Democrats.

Memo to the NYT. Stop trying to fool the American people. We see the body count each and every day of the troops and the Iraqi people. We remember the 'this war will be a cakewalk' and 'this war will take weeks, months at most' or how about 'mission accomplished'!!

What's with these 'reporters'? Do they all have memory loss problems? Remember the Rightwing sending out Schmidt, to attack Murtha? That 'strategy' backfired on them also.

I'm waiting for the day when the media tells the truth, but I won't hold my breath. Shame on all of them ~ they totally failed the American people.

[applegrove]

9. Oh - it isn't the reporting. The reporter reported what people were saying

and I'm glad they did. It was very informative.

[Catrina]

5. They can try all they want to paint this travesty of a presidency

as a success, the fact is it got so bad that desperate generals must have begged Murtha to intervene and go public, since Bush would not listen to them in private.

If Dems have any strategy at all, it ought to be to point out the truth. Bush has failed so badly that the Democrats (in this case represented by Murtha) had to take over. They should emphasize now that they are grateful, for the sake of the country and the troops, that Bush has been forced to listen to Democrats. Too bad he didn't do so earlier.

This is Rove trying to twist the truth (Bush's total failure, and Murtha's forcing him to have to listen at last) into a positive for Bush. No way should they get away with that. The NYT is helping with the propaganda, as they always do, imo.

Once again, Murtha forced Bush to start at least thinking about acting like an adult.

[phaseolus]

6. about 'reversing the slide in the polls'

...his approval was *so* low because even his base stopped trusting him implicitly after the lying thing came to light (even though we knew about it for years) and after "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job" and after he didn't say anything publicly for weeks. Once he started making speeches he probably regained some trust with some people who were predisposed to like him in the first place.

Time will tell, but I suspect 50% approval is his new ceiling, barring any more 9/11s. He's lost too many other peoples' trust.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

8. Part of it is butt licking; part of it is trying to amaze.

As they say, other countries have the press. We in the U.S. have the presstitutes.

[applegrove]

10. I'm glad the reporter reported the way they did. It was informative.

[applegrove]

11. I know longer expect MSM to report anything but facts. I can see the

truth myself through that. The problem here isn't the reporter or the article. I'm glad the reporter reported the vanity and the cold-heartedness. Very informative.

I guess I gave up on MSM reporting anything they could not quote or say is fact.

Once you lower your expectations - it hurts less.