{"id":8837,"date":"2006-10-23T08:58:26","date_gmt":"2006-10-23T12:58:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/8837.html"},"modified":"2006-10-23T08:58:26","modified_gmt":"2006-10-23T12:58:26","slug":"bush-says-weve-never-been-stay-the-course","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/bush-says-weve-never-been-stay-the-course\/","title":{"rendered":"Bush says we’ve never been ‘stay the course’"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s not altogether reassuring that the president frequently reminds me of the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail<\/a>. Told he’s just lost an arm in battle, the [tag]Black Knight[\/tag] is incredulous. After losing another, King Arthur says, “You’ve got no arms left.” The Black Knight responds, “Yes I have.” Arthur looks at the bloody appendages on the ground, to which the Black Knight explains, “It’s just a flesh wound.”<\/p>\n

I kept thinking about that scene yesterday when ABC News’ George [tag]Stephanopoulos[\/tag] noted to [tag]Bush[\/tag] that former Secretary of State James Baker suggested that he’s looking for an Iraq policy that’s somewhere between “cut and run” and “stay the course.”<\/p>\n

The president responded, “Well, hey, listen, we’ve never been ‘[tag]stay the course[\/tag],’ George.”<\/p>\n

No? Never? Nico at ThinkProgress, playing the role of King Arthur, pointed to<\/a> the appendages on the ground.<\/p>\n

BUSH: We will stay the course. [8\/30\/06<\/a>]<\/p>\n

BUSH: We will stay the course, we will complete the job in Iraq. [8\/4\/05<\/a>]<\/p>\n

BUSH: We will stay the course until the job is done, Steve. And the temptation is to try to get the President or somebody to put a timetable on the definition of getting the job done. We’re just going to stay the course. [12\/15\/03<\/a>]<\/p>\n

BUSH: And my message today to those in Iraq is: We’ll stay the course. [4\/13\/04<\/a>]<\/p>\n

BUSH: And that’s why we’re going to stay the course in Iraq. And that’s why when we say something in Iraq, we’re going to do it. [4\/16\/04<\/a>]<\/p>\n

BUSH: And so we’ve got tough action in Iraq. But we will stay the course. [4\/5\/04<\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oops.
\n
\nOf course, Bush said “we<\/i>” have never been about staying the course, suggesting somehow that his entire team has avoided the approach. Unfortunately for the White House, Google exists, and there’s ample evidence that the entire Bush gang has embraced “stay the course” as a policy priority, including White House Press Secretary Tony Snow<\/a> and the president’s allies<\/a> on the Hill.<\/p>\n

I can appreciate the fact that “stay the course” no longer polls well, and I don’t blame the president for wanting to distance himself from what was once his principal talking point, but for Bush to say that he’s “never” embraced such a policy shows the kind of detachment from reality that worries me most about the president. If he said, “I know I’ve used ‘stay the course’ as a policy shorthand, I’m afraid it’s never reflected my full thinking on the issue. Because it gives the public the wrong idea, I now prefer to describe my policy as…” it would at least be partially coherent.<\/p>\n

But Bush instead prefers the Black Knight approach. After using “stay the course” repeatedly for years, the president effectively turns around and says, “Who me? Stay the course? You must be thinking about someone else.” Indeed, watching him make the comments, he appears to actually believe<\/i> them, suggesting he’s deluded himself into embracing the talking points Karl Rove hands so thoroughly, it doesn’t much matter what the truth is anymore.<\/p>\n

Moreover, this seems to be a trend. Iraq wasn’t an imminent threat? Sure it was. No weapons of mass destruction? Wrong, we found them<\/a>. The Social Security privatization scheme would weaken the system? No, it wouldn’t. There’s overwhelming evidence pointing to global warming? No, there isn’t.<\/p>\n

What actually happens doesn’t seem to matter; Bush believes what he wants to believe.<\/p>\n

It must make the president’s daily life absolutely delightful. Ignorance, after all, is bliss. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s not altogether reassuring that the president frequently reminds me of the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Told he’s just lost an arm in battle, the [tag]Black Knight[\/tag] is incredulous. After losing another, King Arthur says, “You’ve got no arms left.” The Black Knight responds, “Yes I have.” Arthur looks at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8837\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}