The Iraq War and the end of Bush's Presidency - at least the end of what it used to be

 

I'm your only defense against terrorism ... and the Democrats are aiding The Terrorists  

Pay no attention to those Halliburton contracts, or to all the other false hopes we've presented on the Iraq War, or that some of my top officials outed a CIA agent, or that my torture policy has wrecked the country's credibility, or that little thing about spying on people without warrants.

Essential quotes from Bush's speech Sunday on the Iraq War (President's Address to the Nation 12/18/05):

[T]error ... terrorism ... weapons of mass destruction ... some capacity to restart programs to produce weapons of mass destruction ... the fight against terror ... weapons of mass destruction ... murderous ... declared America to be his enemy... Saddam loyalists and foreign terrorists ... the war on terror ... terrorists ... a global terrorist movement .. Terrorist operatives ... campaign of murder ... to spread an empire of fear ... perpetual war against America ...  terrorists ... the world as a giant battlefield ... attack us wherever they can ... al Qaeda ... attempting to frighten and intimidate America ... terrorists ... terrorists ... headed our way ... emerging threat to our country ... terrorists ... the terrorists attacked us ... terrorism ... terrorists ... terrorism ... terrorists ... an enemy that is determined and brutal, unconstrained by conscience or the rules of war ... terrorists ... terrorists ... suicide bombers ... terrorists ... a safe haven for terrorists ... defeatists ... Defeatism ... terrorist ... enemies who have pledged to attack us ... global terrorist movement...

Okay, so, "We found some capacity to restart programs to produce weapons of mass destruction" isn't exactly as terrifying as the prewar hype about mushroom clouds and plywood drones of death.  It's maybe marginally more scary than telling us that Saddam had the intent to someday have programs that might produce weapons of mass destruction that he then might give to some terrorist group or the other that might use them against the United States.

Bush is up against a real domestic political problem on the Iraq War.  Ruy Teixeira (Iraq the Vote?  Donkey Rising blog 12/15/05) summarized the results of a recent CBS News/New York Times poll this way:

1. Do people think Bush has clearly explained what the U.S.’s goals are in Iraq? No, by 61-35, they don’t think he has.

2. Do they think Bush has a clear plan for victory in Iraq? No, by 68-25, they don’t think so.

3. Do they think Bush has a clear plan for getting American troops out of Iraq? No, by 70-25, they don’t think so.

4. And do they believe Bush has clearly explained how long US military forces will have to remain in Iraq? No, by an overwhelmingly 81-15, they don’t believe he has.

5. When asked what the US should do in Iraq right now, 60 percent want either to decrease the number of troops in Iraq (32 percent) or remove them all (28 percent).

6. When asked a very straightforward question–no qualifiers or positive and negative arguments-- about whether “the United States should or should not set a time-table for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq”, 58 percent agree and just 39 percent disagree.

More details from the poll, taken December 2-6, can be found at this CBS link.

I doubt that his speech Sunday will do much to rally the general public, at least not the ones who aren't already diehard Republican war fans.  Because as Laura Rozen recently wrote, Bush's capability to pose effectively as the 9/11 President is pretty much gone: He's Done American Prospect 12/20/05 issue.  She wrote:

Bush will be the president for three more years. He will still have the powers that come with the office. In all likelihood, he’ll have an opportunity to remake the Supreme Court. He has time to reignite some sort of domestic agenda. And even in the realm of foreign policy, he still has time to achieve some victories (although it’s interesting to note that victories now are more likely to be built around negotiation than warmongering, as is the case with Condoleezza Rice’s recent talks with the Israelis and the Palestinians). The Bush era - unfortunately - isn’t over.

But the 9-11 era is. When Bush told a carefully selected military audience in Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania, on Veterans Day that Democratic attacks on him “send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America’s will,” the media did not reflexively adopt his perspective, as it had in the past, and the Democrats did not duck and run, as they have in the past. Four days after Bush’s speech, it was instead Senate Republicans who ducked and ran, putting forward a proposal calling on the administration to lay out its plan for ending the war (legislators don’t want Iraq hanging around their necks in 2006).

Having already lost the American public on Iraq, Bush is now beginning to lose even his own party. His presidency as we have known it thus far is over.

This doesn't mean anyone can afford to be complacent.  And we have to recognize Bush's constant attempt to equate criticism of his Iraq War policies with treason for the sleazy, extremist nonsense that it is.

But even the Congressional Democrats must realize by now that Bush can no longer depend on whipping up majority support by appeals to jingoism and fear.