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Bully Pulpit

The term "bully pulpit" stems from President Theodore Roosevelt's reference to the White House as a "bully pulpit," meaning a terrific platform from which to persuasively advocate an agenda. Roosevelt often used the word "bully" as an adjective meaning superb/wonderful. The Bully Pulpit features news, reasoned discourse, opinion and some humor.

Monday, January 15, 2007

Iraqi roulette

"Never reinforce failure."

An adage that is as old as its parentage is uncertain, it nevertheless leaps insensibly into the mind when considering the President's recently announced New Way Forward. It is, of course, unlikely that an additional 17 percent more troops will turn out to be the critical mass required for the pacification of the Sunni and Shiite combatants, much less the peaceful democratization of a collection of ancient peoples who have never known, or even shown any signs of wanting, democratic rule.

And for a situation that, we were repeatedly assured, bears absolutely no similarity to Vietnam, there are what certainly appear to be Vietnamic vibes resonating throughout Washington, as what had been whispers of a Bush-approved military coup that would remove elected Prime Minister Maliki from power are now being openly discussed in National Review, in ominous echo of the Kennedy-approved assassination of South Vietnam's president, Ngo Dinh Diem.


Vox Day

Bush would be better off if he just admitted to Americans that invading Iraq had nothing to do with terrorism, WMD, or democratizing Iraq. If he just tells everyone that it was payback for Saddam's sending of a hit man to off his Pop, and that Saddam is dead and his Pop isn't, we can move on from there. That's a better excuse than some of the other real reasons, anyway. I don't think Bush could survive telling everyone that the Saudi Royal Family said, "Hey! Come get this crazy SOB off our doorstep!"

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