‘Are we winning the war?’

April 30, 2007

Throughout 2006, the president’s bravado was never-ending. In January, Bush boasted that “we are winning” in Iraq. By October, as conditions deteriorated, the president remained confident. “Absolutely we’re winning,” he told reporters.

By the end of the year, the president didn’t like the question anymore. Asked if we are winning the war, Bush told the WaPo, “You know, I think an interesting construct that General [Peter] Pace uses is, ‘We’re not winning, we’re not losing.'”

At Tony Snow’s first briefing back, the subject came up for the first time in a while.

Q: Tony, are we winning the war?

SNOW: Are we winning the war? … You know, April, we’re fighting the war, and it’s an important thing to understand that the only way to lose the war is to walk away from it.

Got that? Forget last year’s assurances that we’re winning, the important thing to remember is that the only way to lose is to withdraw.

Following this logic, as long as we’re fighting, we’re winning. No matter how bad things get, no matter how many soldiers we lose, no matter how much it costs, no matter how far Iraq deteriorates, no matter how much terrorism is created, we’re fighting … so we’re winning.

I sometimes wonder if even the Bush gang believes such transparent nonsense.

More Snow jobs on the way. He will say anything to avoid answering with the truth. You win when you stop fighting idiot.

  • Great to have snow-job back on duty. What a royal putz. Does the same logic hold in a boxing match tony? If you are getting pummeled into a bloody pulp, but you don’t’ withdraw from the match, then you’re winning? Moron. We can not let them FRAME the issues in such ridiculous terms. snow-job makes absurd assertions, says them w/ conviction and tinge of condescension, and reporters simply shut up. There are many ways to lose, a-hole. One way is to refuse to learn form your mistakes, insist you’re right even when the evidence is overwhelming that you are wrong, and to refuse to change as circumstances and conditions change. The best way to lose though, is to continue to listen to rhetorical blather from sycophants like stoney tow.

  • They’re winning their own war. The battle to keep Shrub’s Folly alive until he and his disciples are able to see the death and destruction in their rear view mirrors as they drive away from their safe house at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

    If America is fighting, ShrubCo is winning. This fiasco will always be Shruby’s to have and hold, but if it ends on his watch, and his whole illegitimate squatting in the White House is bookended by the beginning and some sort of finish to ShrubWar, he, (and the Bush Crime Family), will wear it like their personal albatross for a very long time.

  • From another great presidential spokesperson:

    “Iraqi fighters in Umm Qasr are giving the hordes of American and Brtish mercenaries the taste of definite death. We have drawn them into a quagmire and they will never get out of it.”

    “Their forces committed suicide by the hundreds. … The battle is very fierce and God made us victorious. The fighting continues.”

    “Yesterday, we slaughtered them and we will continue to slaughter them.”

  • Y’all watched “The Simpsons” last night, right?

    Remember: as long as you keep playing the game, you haven’t lost.

  • oh my God! we’ve lost the War with Russia, and China, and India, and Mexico, and Canada, and. . .

    dumbass.

  • Here is how the thing should read:

    Q: Tony, are we winning the war against being able to fund Social Security, Public Education, and National Health Care?

    SNOW: Are we winning the war? … You know, April, we’re funding the war, and it’s an important thing to understand that the only way to lose this war is to walk away and stop funding it

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    I will keep saying it:

    The cost so far of the war in Iraq would have funded SS indefinitely and National Health Care for 40 years.

    It’s the money stupid. The money.

  • Someone should tell the Heat that they should have kept playing. It would have been a lot less embarassing if they would have just refused to acknowledge that they got swept.

    Or not.

  • Are we winning?

    Asking oneself a question and then answering it is an odd technique perfected by Rummy.
    Why take seriously the ravings of people who have public conversations with themselves?

  • Tony, Tony, Tony. Didn’t you learn anything from Dana Perino?

    Just pull some facts out of your ass, and wave them around, calling the question ridiculous.

  • Kali,

    I actually thought very much the same thing when I last saw McCain on the Daily Show. I was just waiting for Stewart to lean over and go “You know, maybe Rumsfield may not be the best guy to take rhetorical strategy tips from.”

  • Glad to see Tony has come back in his usual rare form. He’s also claimed today that the president never said there was any connection between 9/11and Iraq.

    On a related topic: there was a fascinating article in NYT over the weekend about cancer survivers and their “chemo brains”.

  • Bill Moyers did an interview with Jon Stewart (aired last Friday but accessible on the PBS site) during which they showed a Stewart bit featuring a series of Bush clips. The further back in time the clips went, the more progress Bush claimed we were making.

    JON STEWART: Wait a minute! Wait a minute! I figured this out. I know what’s wrong with what we’ve done in Iraq. We’ve been following time as it goes forward. What a classic mistake. Linear time is so pre-9-11.

    Seems as good an explanation as any.

  • I sometimes wonder if even the Bush gang believes such transparent nonsense.

    You can’t refute a theology.

    The greater the faith, the greater the merit.
    The greater the absurdity, the greater the faith,
    So the greatest merit comes from believing in the absolutely impossible.

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