Say Anything Blog

There’s been a lot of talk about the surge strategy in Iraq.  Some have talked of progress, others have talked of it not working.  The Bush administration, when it comes to talking about the surge, has taken a position of trying not to make assessments on the progress of it until at least September.

Which makes sense, right?  After all, we shouldn’t judge this strategy until it has been fully implemented (not all of the “surge” troops are even on the ground in Iraq yet) and given some amount of time to be executed.  So the President just isn’t going to spend a lot of time talking about the progress of the surge until there is some actual progress to talk about.

How does the New York Times report on this common sense approach to the situation?

The obvious implication of that headline is that the Bush administration isn’t talking about progress in Iraq because there isn’t any progress in Iraq.  Yet the reality is that the Bush administration, unlike Democrats and most “journalists,” is trying not to pass judgment on the surge until it’s been fully implemented.

Just to put this in perspective, Democrats like Harry Reid are calling Iraq a “lost” war despite the fact that the strategy of the General they voted unanimously to appoint to lead the war in Iraq hasn’t fully been implemented yet.  And it’s the President who draws criticism for not jumping to conclusions about the strategy.

Bush isn’t perfect.  He makes a lot of mistakes, but even when he does things right he just can’t win with the media.