...wherein the Armorer demonstrates why this place doesn't charge for content.
Of course, I don't claim MSM journo credentials. I'm a pamphleteer and proudly Blog Nekkid.
During our visit with the President, most of us got to ask a question.
In his remarks and in response to questions raised before I posed my question, the President talked about how he firmly and passionately believes that the war in Iraq was necessary, and how the fight won't be over, (though we may not see operations on this scale again, especially if we get it right in Iraq and Afghanistan) for some years yet. He spoke of how it was the President's job to "See over the horizon, beyond the Gallup Poll."
So my question was this: "Mr. President, since you clearly see the war as necessary, and lasting beyond your administration, how do you set the conditions to ensure that the effort will continue beyond 2008, regardless of who wins the White House?"
His answer was along the lines I expected, and neutrally stated. Mr. Bush responded, "The private rhetoric of the occupant of the Oval Office may be much different from their public rhetoric once they have access to the information the President has access to." He added that "Iraq has asked for a permanent political, economic and military relationship with the US" which I took to mean that Mr. Bush would be putting formal relationships into place that would make it more difficult for his successor to just repudiate things. Hopefully if that's the case, it won't be a Congress of the 1974-76 era holding the purse strings...
I've long noted chatting with friends that candidates will say silly things on the campaign trail that they'll regret when they start getting their classified briefings when they assume the office. Mr. Kucinich would probably be the exception to that rule - I expect that once he starts getting those briefings he'll say "Oh my! Bring them all home and demoblize them and everyone will love us! We'll make them all Peace Corps people!"
Little did we know that the President was putting his money where his mouth is - by paving the way to help his successor not have to go through huge, agonizing contortions, once they started getting their briefings.
My first hint of that was in this article, by Bill Sammon in the Wichita Examiner:
President Bush is quietly providing back-channel advice to Hillary Rodham Clinton, urging her to modulate her rhetoric so she can effectively prosecute the war in Iraq if elected president.
CDR Salamander notes the phenomenon as well, attributing it to the Power of Petraeus.
I'm guessing it's both. The President's private urgings, plus General Petraeus' report (*and* MSM reporting on the Surge from Iraq) that is causing the shifts in the candidate's public musings - much to the annoyance of the 'Netroots and their fellow travelers such as Andrew Sullivan, mugged conservative:
If Clinton is that comfortable with a permanent occupation of Iraq at this point in the election cycle, how comfortable do you think she's going to be next year? You think a politician so obsessed with gaining and wielding power is happy to relinquish any in the Middle East?
My point about my not being MSM-ready (no real loss, I'm not *trying* to replace them) is that I'm not able (nor interested, at root) to take the time to get the real interviewing done that lays it out more forcefully... as Mr. Sammon did:
In an interview for the new book “The Evangelical President,” White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten said Bush has “been urging candidates: ‘Don’t get yourself too locked in where you stand right now. If you end up sitting where I sit, things could change dramatically.’Bolten said Bush wants enough continuity in his Iraq policy that “even a Democratic president would be in a position to sustain a legitimate presence there. ”
I'm just here to tell you that the President has been consistent in that message. He gave a virtually identical answer to the conservative journalists who were invited over last week. His time with them was pretty much identical to ours, in terms of the main message he was trying to convey.
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