Hume reported Bush "has stopped using the phrase 'stay the course,' " ignored Rumsfeld's denial earlier that day, administration's previous flip-flops
On the October 24 edition of Fox News' Special Report, host Brit Hume stated that "President Bush has stopped using the phrase 'stay the course' after his critics successfully equated it in many people's minds with military inflexibility" and that "today, the top military brass, both in Iraq at the Pentagon" were "insist[ing] that U.S. forces are constantly adapting their approach." However, Hume did not note that the same day, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld stated on ABC Radio Networks' The Sean Hannity Show that "of course" Bush is not backing away from "staying the course," as the weblog Think Progress documented. Hume also ignored previous reports that the White House was rejecting "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 documented.
From the October 24 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume:
HUME: President Bush has stopped using the phrase "stay the course" after his critics successfully equated it, in many people's minds, with military inflexibility. But today, the top military brass, both in Iraq and at the Pentagon, were at pains to insist that U.S. forces are constantly adapting their approach to meet conditions on the ground.
From the October 24 edition of ABC Radio Networks' The Sean Hannity Show:
HANNITY: A lot of debate has now emerged over the phrase "stay the course" and what that actually means. Well, the president is backing away from staying the course.
RUMSFELD: Oh, that's nonsense.
HANNITY: He's not backing away from staying the course.
RUMSFELD: Of course not. You know, I suppose the concern was that it gave opponents a chance to say, "Well, he's not willing to make adjustments," and, of course, just the opposite is true. The old saying is that no war plan survives first contact with the enemy. Why? Because the enemy has a brain. So our battlefield commanders have been making adjustments continuously as the situation has evolved, as the nature of the enemy, the mix of the enemy has changed from time to time, and they're doing a very good job out there -- General [George] Casey and General [John] Abizaid. I think that they probably just said that what they wanted the correct impression to be is that yes, we see what the adjustments need to be, we're making those adjustments, and the, to the extent staying the course left the opposite impression, why, wanted people to fully understand what actually was the case.
HANNITY: How many days has the new government been, in effect, in place?
RUMSFELD: Less than a baseball season.
HANNITY: Yeah, 146, I think, was the days, somewhere in there.
RUMSFELD: Something like that, yeah.
HANNITY: You know because --
RUMSFELD: We're so impatient, you know, as a people.
HANNITY: It's a big part of it, isn't it?
RUMSFELD: It is. Impatience is a good thing in the sense that it makes people want to get things done. On the other hand, it can be -- it can lead you to wrong decisions.
Whenever an administration member like Rummy appears on Fox and are given the usual flowers and backpats it has to get pretty creepy for them once in awhile or at least makes them more vulnerable to harder analysis.
So they're no longer using the phrase "staying the course" but they're going to stay the course. Or maybe I'm just not understanding them. I see how confusing this must be for the people who are still trying to support and make excuses for this band of idiots.
He dances to the tunes of the administration. This sad man will one day realize what he has been doing for so many years. Actually, I think he already does. That's the sad thing.
THANK YOU. njguy93@yahoo.com
The Republican party has been totally exposed as phonies, liars and crooks, yet that knuckledragging 33% is still hanging on, and it's beginning to look like they'll skate through yet another election without paying for their hubris.
They are actually contradicting themselves and each other all over the place, yet those "values voters" can't be pried off the Republican teat.
And, even today, Rush Limbaugh is lathering them up with his "poor opressed Conservatives" bullsh*t.
Amazing.
Whenever conservatives succeed at something, they'll be quick to tell you it's because of their perfect moral values, discipline and "personal responsibility." Whenever they screw up, like Rush, it's all the fault of those mean liberals. Pretty nice trick they've got going for them.
Another FAUX "Journalist" who is a favorite of the VP.
Flashback - January 20, 2005.
[link to mediamatters.org]
It sounds like the Bush Administration has "Cut and Run" from "Stay the Course".
Maybe Rumsfilled didn't get the memo.
Condi tried to tell him, but he wouldn't take her call.
No longer "stay the course" but instead "stuck in a rut".
This is only my perception of what is going on in other words do not be offended because I am in no way an expert on the matter; These individuals that continue as you say to hang on, in other words, these I would say are made up in a lot part of the hard line religious right who want to believe that voting for the G.O.P is a vote against homosexuals. A majority of the the so called hanging on to to the failed plans and policies of this administration, gives them if you will credence for their hatred, which in reality goes against their basic belief of 'love thy neighbor as thyself,' and I consider myself to be as religious or more so than they. And yet my mindset is different than theirs, I am more in tune with freedom and liberty than following man as they are doing, they are simply following an ideology put down by the G.O.P who cares as much about them as it does us liberal thinkers.
“Stay the course” was for years a trap for those who disagreed with the president’s policies in Iraq. To disagree was weak and immoral. It meant abandoning the fight against evil. But now the president himself is caught in that trap. To keep staying the course, given obvious reality, is to get deeper into disaster in Iraq, while not staying the course is to abandon one’s moral authority as a conservative. Either way, the president loses.
And if the president loses, does that mean the Democrats will win? Perhaps. But if they do, it will be because of Republican missteps and not because they’ve acted with strategic brilliance. Their “new direction” slogan offers no values and no positive vision. It is taken from a standard poll question, “Do you like the direction the nation is headed in?”
This is a shame. The Democrats are giving up a golden opportunity to accurately frame their values and deepest principles (even on national security), to forge a public identity that fits those values — and perhaps to win more close races by being positive and having a vision worth voting for.
Right now, though, no language articulating a Democratic vision seems in the offing. If the Democrats don’t find a more assertive strategy, their gains will be short-lived. They, too, will learn the pitfalls of staying the course. -George Lakoff
[link to www.rockridgeinstitute.org]