Cut and Run from Stay the Course

As the McDonald’s boys like to say, I’m lovin’ it [1] (emphasis added): 

President Bush and his aides are annoyed that people keep misinterpreting his Iraq policy as "stay the course." A complete distortion, they say. "That is not a stay-the-course policy," White House press secretary Tony Snow declared yesterday.

Where would anyone have gotten that idea? Well, maybe from Bush. 

"We will stay the course. We will help this young Iraqi democracy succeed," he said in Salt Lake City in August. 

"We will win in Iraq so long as we stay the course," he said in Milwaukee in July. 

"I saw people wondering whether the United States would have the nerve to stay the course and help them succeed," he said after returning from Baghdad in June. 

But the White House is cutting and running from "stay the course." A phrase meant to connote steely resolve instead has become a symbol for being out of touch and rigid in the face of a war that seems to grow worse by the week, Republican strategists say. Democrats have now turned "stay the course" into an attack line in campaign commercials, and the Bush team is busy explaining that "stay the course" does not actually mean stay the course. 

Guess this is sort of like Cheney having never once said that Saddam has WMDs.  The centrist liberals tendency to see shades of grey and to approach problems with intellectual rigor has never translated very well into slogans and catchy phrases.  It is a nice departure, though, to see the Dems actually winning for once in the media war.  For a while, I just assumed that we’d get stuck with the ridiculous ‘cut and run’ moniker.  But looks like Bush got his wish and the GOP is indelibly the party of ‘Stay the Course’, even when that course defies all common sense and humanity.  Looks like people are starting to wake up [2].  Hope this translates into big wins.  I’d love to see Bush ride out the next two years in impotence.  I’d love to see a solid blue congress stop him from causing any more damage.  But mostly I’d love to see us seize an opportunity to develop a sensible plan for how we are going to finally clean up his colossal mess.

[3]