The President of the United States gave an important speech on reconstruction in Iraq yesterday. I predicted that Big Media would dismiss it. I am a prophet (not that this particular prophecy would have taxed the powers of the ordinary conservative).
The Washington Post played the story on page A-18, with a small plug on page 1: “Bush Acknowledges Setbacks in the Reconstruction of Iraq.” I can’t seem to locate it on the Post website, so I’ll have to quote from the print edition.
Here are some of the highlights from the President’s speech:
“Only a few members [of the Council on Foreign Relations] showed up for the hastily organized event at a Washington hotel and empty chairs were removed from the back of the ballroom before Bush arrived. The audience interrupted Bush for applause only once during the speech and even then, many, if not most, did not clap. There was polite applause when he finished.
“Rand Beers, former Bush White House official who advised Sen. John F. Kennedy (D-Mass.), said he would have liked to have asked Bush why he is so resistant to setting even a loose timetable for withdrawal. ‘I don’t understand why that can’t be part of the discussion,” Beers said.”
But Bush is speaking out, going on the offensive-and that works in politics. By not speaking out, he gave Little Media little ammunition to defend the U.S. position in Iraq. And he gave some the impression that the “Bush lied” mantra might, after all, be right.