White House, 5/1/03: "We're not engaged in combat anymore, we're prepared for getting out."

[Bluebear]

WASHINGTON, May 1 -- President Bush's made-for-television address tonight on the carrier Abraham Lincoln was a powerful, Reaganesque finale to a six-week war. But beneath the golden images of a president steaming home with his troops toward the California coast lay the cold political and military realities that drove Mr. Bush's advisers to create the moment.

The president declared an end to major combat operations, White House, Pentagon and State Department officials said, for three crucial reasons: to signify the shift of American soldiers from the role of conquerors to police, to open the way for aid from countries that refused to help militarily and -- above all -- to signal to voters that Mr. Bush is shifting his focus from Baghdad to concerns at home….

"This is the formalization that tells everybody we're not engaged in combat anymore, we're prepared for getting out," a senior administration official said….
*

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003578624

[SammyWinstonJack]

1. Well that worked out well, didn't it?

:banghead:

[SoCalDem]

3. The "Long Good-bye" didn't exactly work out that well.. n/t

[frogcycle]

2. and tonight he says

"This is the formalization that tells everybody we're not getting out anymore, AND we're not prepared for combat AND I am so fucking disengaged I don't know if it's Broadway or Friday."

[Bluebear]

4. Word. nt