Sen. Barack Obama today called for a troop reduction in Iraq, defended John Murtha, and offered the White House a helpful suggestion that the Bush gang will surely ignore.
Obama said Americans want to find solutions to the “difficult and complicated situation in Iraq.”
“The President could take the politics out of Iraq once and for all if he would simply go on television and say to the American people ‘Yes, we made mistakes. Yes, there are things I would have done differently. But now that we’re here, I am willing to work with both Republicans and Democrats to find the most responsible way out,'” Obama said.
Now, this isn’t going to happen. Really. There’s no chance at all. But part of me wonders if Bush even realizes how much support he’d gain if he took Obama’s advice, stopped treating the war like a partisan campaign exercise, and acknowledged his mistakes.
He’d probably get a 10-point bump in the polls overnight. It’s too bad, for Bush, he could never bring himself to say the words.