‘Can you explain why you believe you’re still a credible messenger on the war?’

May 24, 2007

To his enormous credit, NBC’s David Gregory, at this morning’s press conference in the Rose Garden, asked the president one of the more important questions Bush has heard in quite some time.

“Mr. President, after the mistakes that have been made in this war, when you do as you did yesterday, where you raised two-year-old intelligence, talking about the threat posed by al Qaeda, it’s met with increasing skepticism,” Gregory explained. “The majority in the public, a growing number of Republicans, appear not to trust you any longer to be able to carry out this policy successfully. Can you explain why you believe you’re still a credible messenger on the war?” This was Bush’s response, it its entirety:

“I’m credible because I read the intelligence, David, and make it abundantly clear in plain terms that if we let up, we’ll be attacked. And I firmly believe that.

“Look, this has been a long, difficult experience for the American people. I can assure you al Qaeda, who would like to attack us again, have got plenty of patience and persistence. And the question is, will we?

“Yes, I talked about intelligence yesterday. I wanted to make sure the intelligence I laid out was credible, so we took our time. Somebody said, well, he’s trying to politicize the thing. If I was trying to politicize it, I’d have dropped it out before the 2006 elections. I believe I have an obligation to tell the truth to the American people as to the nature of the enemy. And it’s unpleasant for some. I fully recognize that after 9/11, in the calm here at home, relatively speaking, caused some to say, well, maybe we’re not at war. I know that’s a comfortable position to be in, but that’s not the truth.

“Failure in Iraq will cause generations to suffer, in my judgment. Al Qaeda will be emboldened. They will say, yes, once again, we’ve driven the great soft America out of a part of the region. It will cause them to be able to recruit more. It will give them safe haven. They are a direct threat to the United States.

“And I’m going to keep talking about it. That’s my job as the President, is to tell people the threats we face and what we’re doing about it. And what we’ve done about it is we’ve strengthened our homeland defenses, we’ve got new techniques that we use that enable us to better determine their motives and their plans and plots. We’re working with nations around the world to deal with these radicals and extremists. But they’re dangerous, and I can’t put it any more plainly they’re dangerous. And I can’t put it any more plainly to the American people and to them, we will stay on the offense.

“It’s better to fight them there than here. And this concept about, well, maybe let’s just kind of just leave them alone and maybe they’ll be all right is naive. These people attacked us before we were in Iraq. They viciously attacked us before we were in Iraq, and they’ve been attacking ever since. They are a threat to your children, David, and whoever is in that Oval Office better understand it and take measures necessary to protect the American people.”

Wow.

Go back and look at the question again — Gregory asked why Americans should find the president credible on Iraq after he’s gotten every question, every challenge, and every opportunity wrong. The president started by sort of addressing the point — he says he’s credible because he reads the intelligence — but even that’s hardly reassuring. First, he’s misinterpreted the intelligence before. Second, he’s been reading the intelligence since before the war began and has nevertheless managed to screw up every step of the way.

I don’t want to overstate the significance of the exchange, but it struck me as important. In dealing with the most important policy matter in a generation, the president is no longer trustworthy. Asked why we, the people, should believe what he has to say about this crisis, the president gives a 400-word response — that doesn’t answer the question. Not even close.

It’s rather striking. Bush has not only lost his credibility about a war, he’s reached a point at which he can’t even explain why Americans are wrong to distrust him.

And left with no other choice, what does the president do? He goes straight for fear: “They are a threat to your children, David!”

Even by Bush’s low standards, it was a pathetic display.

“And this concept about, well, maybe let’s just kind of just leave them alone and maybe they’ll be all right is naive.”

Really. Who’s been pushing that concept?

  • “And this concept about, well, maybe let’s just kind of just leave them alone and maybe they’ll be all right is naive.”

    Obviously, an unnamed source.

  • …Can you explain why you believe you’re still a credible messenger on the war?

    “Cause I’m the Fear Monger, see? That means I make sure you’re afraid of things that aren’t real. And I’m going to keep talking about it. That’s my job as Fear Monger is to tell people the imaginary threats we face and what we’re doing about it by attacking countries that aren’t a threat.”

    Can someone please remove him from office?

  • I’ll never be able to understand the “we fight them there so we don’t fight them here” arguement. It has never made sense to me. Why would we go to a neutral third country, blow it up, and then think we are safer? We are truely dealing with a madman if that is what he actually believes.

    Also, on the subject of his job as president, is scaring people really his job? Isn’t his job to find diplomatic solutions for difficult problems, including the problem of an unwinnable war? At this point I really question the man’s sanity and fitness to lead. What remedy do we the people have and where is our leadership? I for one am tired of being dismissed as a left wing blogoshpere nut.

  • I’ll never be able to understand the “we fight them there so we don’t fight them here” argument. It has never made sense to me. Why would we go to a neutral third country, blow it up, and then think we are safer? We are truly dealing with a madman if that is what he actually believes.

    Also, on the subject of his job as president, is scaring people really his job? Isn’t his job to find diplomatic solutions for difficult problems, including the problem of an unwinnable war? At this point I really question the man’s sanity and fitness to lead. What remedy do we the people have and where is our leadership? I for one am tired of being dismissed as a left wing blogoshpere nut.

  • W really reached down into his bag of cliches to cut and paste that BS response together.

    “9/11, al Qaeda emboldened, failure, safe haven, extremists, fight them there not here.” Bush has memorized a list of 20 or so meaningless yet inflammatory statements that he just strings together to answer any question about the “terra-ists.” Talk about a Congressbot 9000 spewing rhetoric …

  • These people attacked us before we were in Iraq. They viciously attacked us before we were in Iraq, and they’ve been attacking ever since.

    And who are “these people,” Mr. President….?

    Why didn’t someone just come back with *that* question…????

  • Gregory may have intended to get an answer to his question, but didn’t follow up with any challenge to the non-answer by the boy-king. This is typical behavior so I wouldn’t credit him too much although he may be the lesser evil among the msm.

  • He sounded like he was drunk – theway a long-time alcoholic thinks he’s sober but he isn’t. He’s probably been back on the sauce for at least since November. He has to find some way to convince himself that his lifelong history of failing at everything isn’t happening again. Of course, it is, but…

    Trying to sound “presidential,” he just sounds more and more like a little boy trying to remember what he was told to say.

    I may have disliked Nixon and disagreed with Reagan (having once met him in California politics you could hate his policies but he was still likable as a person), but I was never embarassed by them. Wasn’t even that embarassed by Bush 41 and his language-mangling, since he at least had something mostly-intelligent to say. But Bush 43 is just embarassing – what a worthless piece of dog excrement. I bet he even embarasses Rove now.

  • Bush always pulls that “Iraq-a-nana, fee-foh-fana” shit where he stays on topic for about as long as Alberto Gonzalez can speak without lying, then morphs the question into a talking-point rant of neoconservative masturbation. Ditto his well-worn “attack the strawman” tactic where he makes up outrageous positions that nobody has claimed, then knocks them down in his folksy, lovable, fun-to-have-a-beer-with Texas guy way – “some say we should put coarse-filtered pigshit in the Caramilk instead of caramel, David – I strongly disagree”. “Some people say we should give Osama a green card and make him Director of Homeland Security, Tom – I couldn’t disagree more”.

    As was pointed out earlier, the best approach to use when questioning The Great Big Giant Head on the record is to use short, snappy questions to which the answer can only be “yes” or “no”. This should be reinforced by concluding the question with, “please answer either yes or no”, like in, “Are you a retard? Yes or No?” Even that doesn’t always work, but it might reduce his headlong staggers into fantasyland, on which we are perforce dragged in company.

  • He’s getting out the talking points for the 2008 presidential election. They’re going with fear. We need to elect the republican candidate because he will understand the threat posed by al quaeda whereas the democratic candidate wants to let them come over here and attack us. That’s what they’re doing. Propaganda.

  • This is why many of us are still furious over the Democratic wimp-out on the Iraq funding bill. Bush is obviously on the ropes. (See also: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/us/politics/25cnd-poll.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin for the American public’s latest take on Bush and his war.) Nobody, including Sean Hannity, actually believes anything this guy says anymore. The Dem cave-in to Bush’s “Iraq Habit” just gave him a second wind. But these increasingly surreal attempts to revive the “war president” aura are welcome only to Daily Show writers.

    It’s time to get past the myopia of funding votes and veto overrides. The elephant in the room is defeat in Iraq, inevitable from the start. More precisely, it’s who’s going to get the blame for it. Bush is trying to make it through 2008. If the Dems keep kowtowing and wetting their pants, they’re going to get more people killed and still be blamed for Bush’s war.

    In my opinion, the Dems need to re-frame the issue: “We must redeploy in order to win the war on al queda.” The facts — reality — fit that statement. Americans will agree. And Americans will be amenable to the proposition that George W. Bush is the obstacle in the way, that he started something stupid he couldn’t finish.

    The guy is begging and pleading to be politically splattered. I hope the Democrats can find the guts to accommodate him. If they can, they’ll suddenly find enough votes to override a veto. Maybe enough to impeach.

  • The flypaper strategy of “we fight them there so we don’t have to fight them here” is exactly the crux of our problem. Besides being stupid, it’s grossly arrogant to pick a country filled with innocent people, bomb the heck out of it, draw vicious killers there to prey on them, cause chaos and enable civil war, destroy any ability to make a living, and set their civilization back centuries, just so we can feel safe from OUR enemy. No wonder the Iraqis hate us. Why doesn’t anyone ever say, “It’s OUR enemy Mr. President, so why do the Iraqis have to suffer with OUR war?” No one questions the immorality of the assertion that our lives are worth so much more than theirs.

  • Bush did this once before to David Gregory about a year or so ago. I believe it was in the oval office and David asked him a similar question. Bush stepped in very close to David, pointed his finger practically poking him in the chest and said the exact same thing about the threat to his children. I remember the video.

  • Can you explain why you believe you’re still a credible messenger on the war?

    On the war?

    That’s way too limiting. Let’s see the polling on how many people think he’s lost his credibility period.

  • Rush Limbaugh, self-styled “America’s anchorman,” was teasing David Gregory for having the gall to ask such a question. Since when are reporters supposed to be skeptical of the government? He said, in so many words.

  • I agree with Allibubba that we need to reframe the issue….

    Keep funding the troops, but NOT the war in Iraq

    Engage Al Quada wherever they are but NOT the insurgency in Iraq

  • I can assure you al Qaeda, who would like to attack us again, have got plenty of patience and persistence.
    Even if we leave all of the 9-11 conspiracy theories aside, the ones about it being an inside job, it’s still crystal clear to airline passengers that hijackings today are not like hijackings in the old days. In the old days, you could be quiet and still and go along with everything and thigs would ultimately be more or less okay. Everyone knows that’s not the case today.

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