Who's that throwing the President under the bus?

Mystery pundit, would you agree that this administration waited to make changes until after the election?

"Well, I do think they knew there had to be a change before the election. And they just waited until after the election to announce it.

I found -- one of answers I found interesting was on, again, going back to this issue of 17,500 troops in Baghdad. You asked him, will that be enough? And he said, I'll do what the generals tell me to do basically.

Well, that was his answer for three years when they told him they didn't commit enough troops, as he now acknowledges. So why should we believe him now? And which generals are these?


And what he's trying to do is absolve himself from having to make a judgment and give us the reasons for the judgment, because there are all different generals and colonels and everybody else giving different analyses of how many troops it will take.
And he doesn't give us any military reason. And when pressed, he always gives you a personal reason. "Well, I trust this guy, General Casey. I like that guy, General Abizaid." Well, they're good guys, but the president has to have made -- has to have heard the different arguments and have a substantive reason why this number of troops will work and that number of troops won't work.


And he never really answers on that. He just says, "I defer to the generals." Again, that's not good enough anymore. I haven't heard that many other plausible arguments. And I'm willing to give this policy a chance, as other people who know more about the military situation, more than me, are willing to give it a chance.


But you've got to ease the skepticism based on three years of failure. And, again, that involves granularity; that involves evidence; that involves treating people like adults and not talking down to them."

Give up?

That was David Brooks, in-house conservative for the NYT appearing on Newshour.

Yeah, it's that bad.

A visibly-embarrassed-for-his-colleague, Mark Shields followed this with, "I can't argue with anything that David said there."

I could. But the fact that high-vis conservatives like Brooks are calling the President on his baseless confidence sure saves me a lot of effort.

Thanks David - now just start recanting all the crap you've shoveled out for the past six years and we'll call it even.