The Post Covers the President's Speech

The first article, the straight news coverage, is for the most part unremarkable (and I would note it is clearly the article that is downplayed on the Post's homepage, not an unimportant detail given that the Post still isn't home delivered in the vast majority of the country.) The presentation is pretty straightforward, and there are only a few points I'd want to make.

First, the reporter here does something very important:

The speech and release of the strategy document come as Bush's approval ratings have dropped to new lows and several polls show a majority of the public now regards the war as a mistake, even if most people believe the United States should secure Iraq before leaving. (All emph. are mine.)

All too often reporters, from the very moment this polling result has become available, have used the fact that a majority now say the war "was a mistake" (or whatever the specific wording in the given poll is) to mean that "a majority of Americans no longer support the war." I find that frankly disingenuous. If people believe the war was a mistake, that finding supports a claim that, well, people believe the war was a mistake. So long as there is polling data on whether or not they continue to support an American presence in Iraq, that is the polling data that tells us whether they "support the war," and if most Americans continue to support an American presence in Iraq, that result actually contradicts a claim that they no longer support the war. You can say it's sloppy writing, except that I think it's misleading writing. By including both findings here, this reporter makes his point more clearly -- and more honestly -- than most.

But having given him points for clarity and honesty on that point, I'm afraid I take them back here, where he writes:

White House aides have said that before Iraqis elect a permanent government on Dec. 15, Bush will deliver several more speeches detailing his administration's vision for winning the war. Bush warned that U.S. involvement in the war probably will not end in complete triumph. Instead, he said, U.S. troops will leave when Iraqis are prepared to assume the fight.

To be sure, the President did say there would be no signing ceremony on the deck of the USS Missoui. But he did offer a somewhat grander vision of victory than is suggested here.

In World War II, victory came when the empire of Japan surrendered on the deck of the USS Missouri.

In Iraq, there will not be a signing ceremony on the deck of a battleship. Victory will come when the terrorists and Saddamists can no longer threaten Iraq's democracy, when the Iraqi security forces can provide for the safety of their own citizens, and when Iraq is not a safe haven for terrorists to plot new attacks on our nation.

As we make progress toward victory, Iraqis will take more responsibility for their security and fewer U.S. forces will be needed to complete the mission.

America will not abandon Iraq. We will not turn that country over to the terrorists and put the American people at risk. Iraq will be a free nation and a strong ally in the Middle East. And this will add to the security of the American people.

But the article given far more prominent play on the home page is the one labelled "Analysis." The headline, no surprise, is "An Offering of Detail But No New Substance."

Why no surprise? Several pundits and commentators that I heard giving insta-analysis yesterday were complaining that there was new detail, but no new substance in the speech. (You'll notice that this is precisely the theme of the Democratic critique.) This makes sense because no matter how often the President might have been critiqued before the speech for not "fleshing out" his argument, actually doing so was bound to leave the press unimpressed. After all, they're there to report the news. If the news isn't new, they aren't really likely to like it.

But that's expressed particularly sourly here:

But broadly Bush gave no ground to critics who want a major course change, and the plan he released yesterday offered nothing new substantively.

That's more than disappointment that there was nothing new to hear. That's a complaint that what wasn't new was a cave to "critics who want a major course change," and I don't think the reporter here refers to those who have been asking for more troops to Iraq. I glean this from the rest of the paragraph:

Short of changing conditions on the ground, Bush faces enormous challenges in turning around public attitudes on the war. The American people have grown increasingly sour on Iraq in public polls, and most no longer approve of the way the president is handling the war.

This is special:

The latest speech won Bush few converts in Washington, with opposition leaders rushing out critiques, in some cases even before he had finished speaking in Annapolis. "The president was basically repackaging things and saying everything's fine when every day we read that things are not fine," said former secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright. "I so wish I could believe him. I like to believe an American president. But he's got such a credibility issue."

It would be nice if they could at least hold the critiques until the speech was over, don't you think? As for Madame Secretary, she's got some damn nerve, given that she's been part of the brigade helping to create the credibility problem, going on television at every opportunity to spin and dissemble every claim ever made by the Clinton administration about Saddam.

Here's another thing that annoys me:

He dropped the acrid rhetoric yesterday and professed that "we should not fear the debate in Washington. It's one of the great strengths of our democracy that we can discuss our differences openly and honestly even at times of war."

Every time they report that the President has defended the right to critique the war, they do so in exactly this tone. Wow! The President (this time) just said he supports the right to debate! ignoring the fact that the same claim has been in each previous speech.

Look at this:

No longer are they declaring that the insurgency is in its "last throes," as Cheney did last spring. Instead, they emphasize in their new strategy document that "it is not realistic to expect a fully functioning democracy, able to defeat its enemies" to be built in three years. And Bush acknowledged yesterday what U.S. military and intelligence experts have said for months, that terrorists make up the smallest group opposing coalition forces and that "ordinary Iraqis, mostly Sunni Arabs" represent "by far the largest group."

Yeah, fair enough, that zombie keeps coming back to life. But it is unfair to note that the foreign fighters are the "smallest group" without further acknowledging what else the President said about that group:

The third group is the smallest but the most lethal: the terrorists affiliated with or inspired by Al Qaida.

Many are foreigners who are coming to fight freedom's progress in Iraq. This group includes terrorists from Saudi Arabia and Syria and Iran and Egypt and Sudan and Yemen and Libya and other countries.

Our commanders believe they're responsible for most of the suicide bombings and the beheadings and the other atrocities we see on our television.

They're led by a brutal terrorist named Zarqawi, Al Qaida's chief of operations in Iraq, who has pledged his allegiance to Osama bin Laden.

Their objective is to drive the United States and coalition forces out of Iraq and to use the vacuum that would be created by an American retreat to gain control of the country.

They would then use Iraq as a base from which to launch attacks against America and overthrow moderate governments in the Middle East and try to establish a totalitarian Islamic empire that reaches from Indonesia to Spain.

That's their stated objective. That's what their leadership has said.

These terrorists have nothing to offer the Iraqi people.

BUSH: All they have is the capacity and the willingness to kill the innocent and create chaos for the cameras.