Who's micromanaging now?

Remember earlier this year, when President Stupid was accusing the mean Democrats of micromanaging the war?

Well, what does this sound like to you?

While "formidable challenges" remain in Iraq, President Bush said Saturday, the United States will start shifting more troops into support roles — in addition to the troop withdrawals announced earlier in the week.

In December, the United States will begin a new military phase in Iraq — one in which "our troops will shift over time from leading operations to partnering with Iraqi forces, and eventually to overwatching those forces," Bush said in his weekly radio address.

What exactly are these "support roles" and what kind of word is "overwatching"? Does the president mean "overseeing," perhaps? How do you partner and "overwatch" at the same time?

Interestingly, the link includes a quote from Rep. Tom Lantos, saying that "Americans' patience with this war has run out." Much as I hated the decision to approve more funding for Situation FUBAR, sans timetable, I wonder if there was a strategic aspect to it. Namely, that by approving funding until September, they could say to the president and the American people, "Look, we gave this administration an opportunity to prove that the surge would work. Enough already. No more chances." Of course, I could be wrong.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tell us something we don't already know

The MTA is clueless. Man, if you need a place to vent or learn the full story behind mass transit horror stories, check out Gothamist. The MTA admitted that the service was not acceptable on many accounts, from the flooding to the fact that the MTA's website was overwhelmed. Then there's also the fact that the MTA was urging people not to take the subways and opt for a bus instead, only for buses to be (A) few and far between and (B) crowded as anything. They forgot to mention "(C) fucking slow." Don't the people at the MTA feel really stupid when they say shit like this? MTA CEO Lee Sander said, "We really are sorry about the inconvenience that New Yorkers had to deal with. In terms of how it happened, we had three inches of rain in an hour. The system is designed to handle 1.5 inches." This isn't quite as appalling as last year's 9-day Queens blackout--you know, the one where Con Ed lied about the number of places without power--but it still in
Read more

We're the ones we've been waiting for, and all that

Via Blue Wave News , Van Jones' speech at the Campus Progress National Conference, which rang true to this cautiously optimistic liberal. More from Mr. Jones, via HuffPo: We are trying to build a pro-democracy movement in a country that, at least for eight years, was run by [inaudible] authoritarians. And it is not going to be easy. But I tell you, the most important thing I can say is... We feed the fearmongers. We feed the politics of division, by giving it so much attention and letting it fill up the space in our mind. We have to feed the hope. This country is an extraordinary -- I get choked up -- this is an incredible, beautiful country... That little idiot box off in the corner trying to depress you and make you feel like this is a horrible country and everybody believes evil things about the president... it is just not true. Cut it off, just cut it off and walk down the street and talk to real people in this country. They are sophisticated. They are wise. They don't kno
Read more