Ruining America

If President George Bush's hasty news conference on Iraq this week was the Republican October Surprise -- unveiling some sudden presidential flexibility after three and a half years of stubbornly staying a losing course -- it didn't work.

With the midterm elections now days away, it smacked more of a change in semantics than a serious change in the direction of a war that seems to be spiraling out of control.

"Benchmark" is the new White House buzzword. We're not setting a "timetable" for the withdrawal of America's 147,000 troops in Iraq. We're not putting any real heat on Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. No cutting and running for us.

And, yes, the president has full faith and confidence in the chief architect of the war in Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. You're doing a heckuva job, Rummy. Never mind that your approval rating is at 12 percent among the American people, Don. The Decider puts you at 110 percent.

So we're going to stay put in Iraq; going, in fact, to stay the course all the way to victory. We aren't going to be drawing down our troops, who are square in the middle of a burgeoning Iraqi civil war. In fact, we might even send more troops over there if the president can find any to send from an Army and Marine Corps already stretched so thin that you can read your morning paper through them.