Bush to Continue Iraq Media Offensive Sunday
A primetime address is in the works:
President Bush will address the nation about Iraq on Sunday evening, his first speech from the Oval Office since he announced the beginning of the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.
The address at 9 p.m. EST comes on the heels of a two-week, four-speech blitz to build support for a war that a majority of Americans now say was a mistake.
The White House said it was asking television networks for live coverage of the president’s address, expected to run less than 20 minutes.
”The Iraqi people have just concluded a historic election, and we now are entering a critical period for our mission in Iraq,” White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Friday.
”The president will talk about the importance of our mission and the way forward in 2006,” he said.
I look for the following: more of Bush’s newfound willingness to admit that things haven’t gone as well as we had hoped in some areas, and that mistakes have been made with pre-war intelligence, coupled with a reminder of the historic nature of the recently concluded elections, a strong emphasis on the need to avoid artificial timetables and let events on the ground determine how many troops withdraw and when, and, less likely but still possible, an announcement that 20-30,000 troops are withdrawing almost immediately, with or without the context that we had beefed up our presence pre-election by about 30,000…
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The Media’s Incurable Myopia by Tom Bevan at the RCP Blog:
The coverage of the Iraqi election by …
They are not letting up, are they? I’m betting on more of points three and four, and certainly the draw down, which will be framed as a response to the election–and that has the added advantage of being true!
BTW, Casey announced yesterday that the two battilions that went over for the election would be coming home in January. so that’s roughly the 20,000 draw down confirmed.
AE, thanks for that news, I missed it…
Go George Go!!!!!!!!!!!
I can’t give him too much credit for admitting in public what is already known to be true, or, as with the 30000 dead number, a consistent and widely believed estimate.
Clearly he understands (as a result of his bad poll numbers?) the political value of saying that which most of us already knew.
[...] The President gave a very strong speech, in my view. I almost nailed it a few days ago: I look for the following: more of Bush’s newfound willingness to admit that things haven’t gone as well as we had hoped in some areas, and that mistakes have been made with pre-war intelligence, coupled with a reminder of the historic nature of the recently concluded elections, a strong emphasis on the need to avoid artificial timetables and let events on the ground determine how many troops withdraw and when, and, less likely but still possible, an announcement that 20-30,000 troops are withdrawing almost immediately, with or without the context that we had beefed up our presence pre-election by about 30,000… That last point was off the mark…Bush did not take the easy road of trumpeting the already planned withdrawal of the troops that beefed up election security, and I think that is to his credit. [...]