bloggedy blog: the personal weblog of a music lover and aging punk wannabe

:: Thursday, January 11, 2007 ::

Post-'surge' speech roundup
Taking a break from the usual musings on music, pop culture and other frivilous pursuits to bring you some Monday-morning quarterbacking re: President Bush's Wednesday night speech offering his rationale to increase troop levels in Iraq. (Like you couldn't find this stuff anywhere else.)

From OpinionJournal (the Wall Street Journal's site): Mission Baghdad: "Clear, hold and build" will take at least this many troops.
Crucial to all of this will be the new U.S. ground commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, who not only recruited and trained the Iraqi Army starting in 2004 but also oversaw the drafting of the U.S. Army's latest Counterinsurgency Manual. His job will be to execute the "clear, hold and build" strategy Mr. Bush has talked about for some time. General Casey has resisted the deployments necessary to make the "hold" and "build" phases work, and General Petraeus will have to insist that he has them.

Iraqi leadership will also be important to the new strategy, as the President noted last night. ...
Winning headline: Bush admits mistakes, promises to make more, from TruthDig.

Second-best headline: Surge protector, which Slate used on its cover package.

Surge Scoring -- Peter Brookes, Cliff May, Clark Judge, Joseph Skelly, Jim Robbins and others analyze the speech for National Review Online.
Brookes (of the Heritage Foundation): "[I]t's clear from last night's post-speech response that the Democratic congressional leadership still doesn't have a plan for victory in Iraq other than thwarting the president's efforts."

Clark Judge, of the White House Writers Group: "The president must move fast. The speech has brought him time, but not much. The Democrats probably won’t dare block him, yet. But six months from now — even three — will be another story, unless our forces are producing results."
Takes 'n takes on the speech, via Donklephant.

The Uniter Divides: Bush plan fractures the DLC, from Daily Kos:
Well, the reviews are in. Bush's 11% doctrine speech was a ~~bomb~~ IED.

So now, the scramble is on for politicians of all stripes to distance themselves from his idiotic "plan." Of course, that surge was well underway even before the teleprompter was even hooked up, and Democratic presidential candidates were among the first to find their way to the microphones.
Tags: Bush, politics, Iraq, current affairs, current events

:: Andrew 07:27 + ::
...

from our sponsors

bloggedy blog

About

Syndicate

music to my ears

bookish blogs

media & politics

pop culture

emerging churchies

jambalaya

my writings

bloggedy blog recommends

In rotation

bloggedy tags

from our sponsors

for your viewing pleasure

where in the world?