How many times will the White House drop "stay the course" before the media notice it has purported to drop it before?

During an October 23 press briefing, White House press secretary Tony Snow announced that President Bush has "stopped using" the phrase "stay the course" when talking about the Iraq war "[b]ecause it left the wrong impression about what was going on." In covering Snow's comments, however, the media simply noted that Bush and other White House officials have used the phrase as recently as October 11. None of these media outlets noted that Snow's October 23 comments mark the second time that the White House has reportedly rejected "stay the course" as a characterization of the administration's strategy in Iraq, even as Bush continued to use it.

As Media Matters for America noted, the Bush administration began using "stay the course" not long after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. It was the oft-repeated mantra of Bush's 2004 re-election campaign, and its use by the administration continued throughout 2005 and 2006.

Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman appears to be the first GOP official to suggest that the White House had disavowed the term "stay the course." On the August 13 broadcast of NBC's Meet the Press, Mehlman told guest host and NBC News chief White House correspondent David Gregory: "The choice in this election is not between 'stay the course' and 'cut and run,' it's between 'win by adapting' and 'cut and run.' "

As Media Matters noted, the media followed Mehlman's lead, despite the fact that Bush and Snow used "stay the course" several times during the month of August. On the August 27 broadcast of Meet the Press, Kate O'Beirne, Washington editor of the conservative National Review, claimed that the Bush administration is "changing" its rhetoric from "stay the course" to "adapt for victory." On the August 30 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, guest host and MSNBC chief Washington correspondent Norah O'Donnell left unchallenged Mehlman's claim that "I don't think our approach is stay the course. ... Our approach is to adapt and win." Notwithstanding Mehlman's assertion, as Think Progress noted, Bush said on August 30, "We will stay the course." As Media Matters previously noted, on August 31, The Washington Post reported that "[m]any Democrats accuse the president of advocating 'stay the course' in Iraq, but the White House rejects the phrase and regularly emphasizes that it is adapting tactics to changing circumstances." Media Matters noted then that, notwithstanding the White House's reported claims to having rejected the phrase, Bush was still using it.

On the September 18 broadcast of NBC's Today, co-host Meredith Vieira asked first lady Laura Bush, during an interview, what she says to Republican candidates who ask her about the Iraq war. Mrs. Bush responded: "Well, I say exactly what the president says, that we need to stay the course; that it's really in our interest as Americans to make sure Iraq can build a stable democracy." As noted above, President Bush used "stay the course" again during an October 11 press conference but described the term as being "about a quarter right," saying, "Stay the course means keep doing what you're doing. My attitude is: Don't do what you're doing if it's not working -- change. Stay the course also means: Don't leave before the job is done. And that's -- we're going to get the job done in Iraq. And it's important that we do get the job done in Iraq."

Notwithstanding Bush's continued use of "stay the course," even as the media were reporting he had abandoned it, Bush told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos on the October 22 broadcast of This Week that his administration has "never been stay the course" on Iraq. As Media Matters noted, Stephanopoulos failed to challenge Bush's clearly false claim. The next day, on CBS' The Early Show, White House senior adviser Dan Bartlett claimed that the Bush administration's Iraq policy has "never been a 'stay the course' strategy." Co-host Hannah Storm also failed to challenge this claim.

At his October 23 press briefing, Snow was pressed on the administration's position on "stay the course" and claimed that Bush has "stopped using it":

REPORTER: Is there a change in the administration's "stay the course" policy? Bartlett this morning said that wasn't ever the policy.

SNOW: No, the policy -- because the idea of "stay the course" is you've done one thing, you kick back, and wait for it. And this has always been a dynamic policy that is aimed at moving forward at all times on a number of fronts, and that would include the international diplomatic front. After all, the Iraq compact is something we worked out with the Iraqis before visiting the prime minister in Baghdad earlier this year.

So, what you have is not "stay the course," but, in fact, a study in constant motion by the administration and by the Iraqi government, and, frankly, also by the enemy, because there are constant shifts, and you constantly have to adjust to what the other side is doing.

I think you also see much more aggressive efforts on the part of the Iraqi government because the prime minister understands the importance -- the vital importance of reconciliation. The third reconciliation conference will be taking place next -- is it next week, week after next? -- on the 4th. He is working on the reconciliation front. There has been considerable -- and continues to be -- action on the economic front. And obviously, we're continuing to cooperate in security. That is not a "stay the course" policy.

[...]

REPORTER: Tony, it seems what you have is not "stay the course." Has anybody told the president he should stop calling it "stay the course" then?

SNOW: I don't think he's used that term in a while.

REPORTER: Oh, yes, he has. Repeatedly.

SNOW: When?

REPORTER: Well, in August, because I wrote a story saying he didn't use it and I was quite sternly corrected.

SNOW: No, he stopped using it.

REPORTER: Why would he stop using it?

SNOW: Because it left the wrong impression about what was going on. And it allowed critics to say, well, here's an administration that's just embarked upon a policy and not looking at what the situation is, when, in fact, it's just the opposite. The president is determined not to leave Iraq short of victory, but he also understands that it's important to capture the dynamism of the efforts that have been ongoing to try to make Iraq more secure, and therefore, enhance the clarification -- or the greater precision.

REPORTER: Is the president responsible for the fact people think it's "stay the course" since he's, in fact, described it that way himself?

SNOW: No.

Following this latest repudiation of "stay the course" by Bush, Bartlett, and Snow, various media outlets simply reported their statements, or that the administration has used the phrase extensively in the past -- failing to note that the White House had purportedly already rejected the terminology once, even as the president continued to use it. The New York Times reported on October 24 that Bush used the term on August 31 but "has not repeated it for some time," ignoring his use of it on October 11. The Associated Press simply reported that Snow said Bush "stopped using" the phrase, as did the October 23 broadcasts of ABC's World News with Charles Gibson and NBC's Nightly News.