Bush: NYET to Iraq Study Group

This also should not be much of a surprise here, but I have to wonder if this is what comes out of Washington in the form of political humor these days. This is from The Washington Post:

President Bush vowed yesterday to come up with "a new strategy" in Iraq but expressed little enthusiasm for the central ideas of a bipartisan commission that advised him to ratchet back the U.S. military commitment in Iraq and launch an aggressive new diplomatic effort in the region.

On the day after the congressionally chartered Iraq Study Group released its widely anticipated report, much of Washington maneuvered to pick out the parts they like and pick apart those they do not. The report's authors were greeted with skepticism on Capitol Hill, and Democratic leaders used the occasion to press Bush to change course without embracing the commission's particular recipe themselves.

Sometimes you just have to laugh at this. President Bush expresses "little enthusiasm for the central ideas of a bipartisan commission" that have basically told him to get out of Iraq. And now the Washington pundits and politicians are cherry-picking the details from the ISG report they like to support their own arguments for staying or leaving Iraq.

And President Bush is really playing up the marketing spin here. Here's another section of the WaPost article:

At a news conference with visiting British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush called himself "disappointed by the pace of success" and said that "we'll change it if we want to succeed."

"The American people expect us to come up with a new strategy to achieve the objective which I've been talking about," Bush said.

Yet, while the president called the Iraq Study Group's ideas "worthy of serious study," he seemed to dismiss the most significant ones point by point. He noted that Blair is heading to the Middle East to promote Arab-Israeli peace, but he gave no indication that he plans an aggressive new push of his own as proposed by the commission. Bush said he, too, wants to bring U.S. troops home but noted that the group qualified its 2008 goal by linking it to security on the ground.

And he repeated his refusal to talk with Iran and Syria unless Tehran suspends its uranium-enrichment program, Damascus stops interfering in Lebanon and both drop their support for terrorist groups. "The truth of the matter is that these countries have now got the choice to make," Bush said. "If they want to sit down at the table with the United States, it's easy: Just make some decisions that will lead to peace, not to conflict."

In other words here, Bush has pretty much rejected the entire ISG report.

And even Bush is now getting into cherry-picking parts of the ISG report--he even admitted it during the press conference:

With the commission -- led by former secretary of state James A. Baker III and former congressman Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.) -- having advanced 79 recommendations, Bush made clear that he intends to cherry-pick some and ignore others. "I don't think Jim Baker and Lee Hamilton expect us to accept every recommendation," Bush said. "I think they expect us to consider every recommendation."

But what is really disgusting here is both Hamilton and Baker's responses towards the Bush administration's rejection of the ISG report:

Actually, Baker and Hamilton said on Wednesday that they do want the president to accept the commission's plan as a whole, not simply pieces of it. But they lowered their expectations yesterday and welcomed Bush's comments. "Every single statement the president has made that I have seen . . . has been positive," Hamilton told reporters. "Now, he didn't jump and embrace the report and say 'I'm going to enact all 79 recommendations.' We didn't have that expectation."

My question to both Hamilton and Baker is why did even spend so much time and the American taxpayer's money writing this report--and then kissing the president's ass, just after he pretty much wiped it with the report? Every single statement the president has made...has been positive? Excuse me Mr. Hamilton, but the president had pretty much tossed the entire report into the White House trash bin. He's not going to enact a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops. He is not going to negotiate with Syria or Iran regarding Iraq. In fact, President Bush is going to continue his "stay the course" policy, and allow his successor to clean up the mess that he has made over the past six years. And now we have both yourself and Mr. Baker kissing the president's ass right after this report has been released. And yes, even Jim Baker is kissing President Bush's ass here:

Still, Baker said, "the last thing in the world" he is interested in is "backing the president into any corner" on Iraq. "That's not the purpose of this," he said. Unlike the commission that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Baker said his panel does not intend to stay around to monitor the implementation of its recommendations. After appearing on Sunday talk shows, he said, "I'm finished."

Mr. Baker, if it wasn't the purpose of pushing the president into any corner for getting the U.S. out of Iraq, then what was the purpose of this Iraq Study Group? If you're not going to stay around as the Bush family's consigliore to help clean up this mess that Bush Junior has made, then why even take the post as the ISG's co-chairman? Why don't you put Junior's feet to the fire and push him to implement these ISG recommendations that you approved of as the co-chairman of the ISG? Or is the ISG a Bush family's CYA attempt to protect this failed president from the disaster he has created for this country? Because this country has descended into a disaster of such a magnitude by a failed, incompetent son of a family that you helped placed into the White House.

I sometimes have to wonder just how incompetent and stupid Washington is these days.