[Cicero]

Right on the money. If we had an honest press and a loyal opposition, I believe Bush would explain what he is doing. Since we don't, he is constrained in what he can say.

[Steve_Seattle]

"if we had an honest press and a loyal opposition"

Yes, it's instructive to go back to the war in Kosovo, where no one even pretended that American security was seriously at stake, where there was no U.N. resolution or extended public debate, no clear exit strategy, and where we were immersing ourselves in ancient ethnic hatreds - yet liberals fell solidly behind Clinton and there were no serious anti-war demonstrations. The lack of a clear national security interest was even trumpeted as a reason FOR the war - remember the claim that Kosovo was "the first humanitarian war"? Bush should have pressed the liberation angle of this from the start.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

This is not a plan we want our president discussing at this stage. Period.

It puts me in mind of Nixon's cagey comment which the press siezed upon and translated baldly into "Nixon claims to have a plan for ending Vietnam." That wasn't what he said.