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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Monday, April 23, 2007

Harry Reid plays hardball

Bush is meeting with Gen. Petraeus and is then going to make statement today. Harry Reid's office made sure to release excerpts of Reid's speech so that they would be included in the coverage.
"The military mission has long since been accomplished. The failure has been political. It has been policy. It has been presidential."

"I understand the restlessness that some feel. Many who voted for change in November anticipated dramatic and immediate results in January," he said.

"But like it or not, George W. Bush is still the commander in chief — and this is his war,".....

"The White House transcript says the president made those remarks in the state of Michigan. I believe he made them in the state of denial,"

I'm impressed by this. A "dig" embedded in every quotable line, but they're not the center of the soundbite. The "digs" are added in a very derisory manner. It's very Republican.

Later: Here's a video chunk of the speech. It's pretty good.

posted by mikevotes at 7:46 AM

4 Comments:

  • Yes, it's Bush's war now, not America's......

    By Blogger Lew Scannon, at 7:59 PM  

  • That's the Dem point

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 9:08 PM  

  • I like his point that the military mission was successfully accomplished a long time ago. (I like this tact of the Dems coopting the military "mission accompished" message). But since Bush had no plan of what to day after, say, day 30, he's simply left the military circling the block for the past four years with now clear direction as to what to do next, save some vague charge to achieve "victory."

    At some point the surgeon (military) has to stop cutting into the patient and begin to stitch him up (redeploy). The rest of the recuperation is left the the occupational and physical therapists (diplomats and political advisors)...

    By Blogger -epm, at 9:36 PM  

  • It also completely frees them of any "support the troops" rhetoric while laying all responsibility on the White House.

    It's been bouncing around for awhile, but hasn;t really been used by any of the majors.

    (Oh, to your second point. If the patient didn't have health insurance, he would've been sewn up long ago, but this patient has $500 billion in unlimited coverage.)

    Mike

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 9:48 PM  

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