Finally, finally, the president has decided to confront <$NoAd$>the root problem in our troubled occupation of Iraq: the spin deficit.
From Robin Wright’s front page piece in tomorrow’s Post …
President Bush will launch an ambitious campaign tomorrow night to shift attention from recent setbacks that have eroded domestic and international support for U.S. policy in Iraq, particularly the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the escalating violence, and focus instead on the future of post-occupation Iraq.
The president will open a tightly orchestrated public relations effort in a speech at the Army War College outlining U.S. plans for the critical five weeks before the transfer of political power June 30.
Along related lines, I can’t help but wonder whether the spill the president took from his bicycle today won’t become iconic in the same way that the state dinner the first President Bush attended in Tokyo on January 8th 1992 in which he collapsed into the arms of, and then vomited on, Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa became a symbol of his then-faltering presidency.
Drudge reported the following about John Kerry’s alleged response …
Kerry told reporters in front of cameras, ‘Did the training wheels fall off?’… Reporters are debating whether to treat it is as on or off the record… Developing…
Let me translate this: Off the record John Kerry quipped “Did the training wheels fall off?” But the quote was so good that several reporters couldn’t resist and passed it on to Drudge.
Bad politics? Maybe.
But I have to admit that it made me laugh and think of these two grafs from a post from Thursday afternoon …
According to several participants, President Bush told Republicans that the Iraqis are ready to “take the training wheels off” by assuming power.
That’s a bit of a condescending thing to say about a country which encompasses what is generally considered to be the cradle of civilization. But the thought that an extra set of training wheels may now be available prompts the question of whether the Iraqis might be willing to hand their pair off to the White House.
On the other hand, giving it more thought, perhaps what he needs is not so much a pair of training wheels as a set of brakes …
