[Mb-civic] Piling on the Defenders of U.S. Policy in Iraq - Dana Milbank - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Piling on the Defenders of U.S. Policy in Iraq

By Dana Milbank
Wednesday, August 24, 2005; Page A03

You knew it was a bad day for the White House when even Fox News was 
piling on President Bush's counselor, Dan Bartlett.

E.D. Hill, one of the "Fox & Friends" morning show anchors, said she 
thought the Iraq war "was a justified one" but now worries "that there's 
not a plan to actually win that ground war."

"Well, E.D., I can assure you that's not the case," Bartlett assured 
her. Allowing that it's been a "bumpy process" with "difficult days," he 
asserted: "We have the right strategy to prevail."

Hill was not reassured by this assurance. "I guess I'm not convinced," 
she replied.

Nor, it seems, is most of the country. A nationwide poll released Monday 
by American Research Group showed Bush's approval rating at 36 percent 
-- a new low that, if accurate, would put him in the unhappy company of 
his father just before his 1992 loss to Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter 
before his loss to Ronald Reagan. Antiwar demonstrators dog Bush at his 
ranch and at every stop on the road, and Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) has 
said we "should start figuring out how we get out of" Iraq. 
Constitutional negotiators are bickering, and some talk of civil war.

Under that dark cloud, the White House yesterday morning rushed to 
distribute umbrellas. Bartlett signed up for six morning television 
interviews, on the three networks and the three cable news channels. The 
White House announced that Bush, vacationing in Idaho, would come out to 
face the cameras. The Pentagon said Donald Rumsfeld would hold a news 
conference. The State Department scheduled an "open press" event for 
Condoleezza Rice but, perhaps sensing overkill, later said there would 
be "no Q&A."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/23/AR2005082301243.html?nav=hcmodule
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