#421 - The Poll's the Thing...

...in Which to Catch the Conscience of the King

Bush's address to the nation last night concerning Iraq did have one highlight: there wasn't a smirk to be seen on the visage of our famously smirky president.

All of a sudden, the administration is admitting that the war in Iraq is not progressing as promised last March:

After a string of setbacks, President Bush had to confront the obvious last night, that the postwar conflict in Iraq is not going well and that it will take considerably more time, money and sacrifice for the United States to prevail than he had told the country when he launched an invasion last April.

The war in Iraq that the president described last night is a far cry from the shock-and-awe power of the spring offensive that drove then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from power in little more than a month. What he talked about in his nationally televised address was a dangerous and more grinding conflict in which sheer force and technological prowess may be less conclusive to the outcome than will, resolve and patience. ("A Blunt Blow to Postwar Realities", via the Washington Post)

The "we have liberated the Iraqis from tyranny" rhetoric was still there, but it was tempered by the absence of the usual boasts about our accomplishments thus far.

Did the White House finally see the light and decide to level with the American public? Nope, they saw the poll numbers and decided some perspective might encourage Americans to be a bit more patient.