From the Desk of GWB

The speech:

After September 11, I made a commitment to the American people: This nation will not wait to be attacked again. We will take the fight to the enemy. We will defend our freedom.

Iraq is the latest battlefield in this war.

Here's the thing, Mr. President. Iraq didn't have to be the latest battlefield. But you made it that way. It was you idea to trump up charges of WMDs and imply links to Al Qaeda that simply weren't there. And the people of this country understand this. When you try and link Iraq and 9/11, it rings hollow and false. And people don't buy it.

Imagine your approval ratings, though, had you stuck in Afghanistan and had to call this press conference to announce the capture of Osama Bin Laden. Your policies would be much better off now, that's for sure.

Some wonder whether Iraq is a central front in the war on terror.

Actually the proper phrasing should be "Some wonder whether Iraq was a central front in the war on terror before we invaded the country and raised anti-American hostility in the region." Few if any doubt now whether we need to win in Iraq. The doubt is why we went there in the first place.

And a question I haven't heard asked in response to the Bush administrations "flypaper defense" of the war: If we had stayed in Afghanistan and continued a massive search for Osama Bin Laden, wouldn't the terrorists have come to us there as well? Then we'd be, according to the strategy, sacrificing our troops for the sake of the American homeland. Same principle, but in a country that actually was responsible for attacks on our soil.

These are savage acts of violence but they have not brought the terrorists any closer to achieving their strategic objectives.

Quite honestly, I'm not sure the terrorists need much in the way of strategic objectives. They just need to continue killing innocent Iraqis and American troops, and they will continue to create an environment of fear and death in Iraq. And as one of my friends pointed out, they have a majority of our troops pinned down, unable to engage other terrorists regimes if necessary. They have forced dwindling numbers in our military. And there is no guarantee, even when we've trained the Iraqi forces, that they will be able to put down the insurgency on their own. After all, look how much trouble it's given us.

I recognize that Americans want our troops to come home as quickly as possible. So do I. Some contend that we should set a deadline for withdrawing U.S. forces. Let me explain why that would be a serious mistake. Setting an artificial timetable would send the wrong message to the Iraqis, who need to know that America will not leave before the job is done. It would send the wrong message to our troops, who need to know that we are serious about completing the mission they are risking their lives to achieve. And it would send the wrong message to the enemy, who would know that all they have to do is to wait us out.

Think Progress has found someone who disagrees with you. He ran for President in 2000 against Al Gore. Maybe you know him.

As I went to Think Progress, I noticed they are/did make a lot of the same points I have, so head there for more coverage. I would imagine Bush gets a small bounce from all this, simply because he has nowhere to go but up anyway. Whether it's a sustained bounce is another issue. But it probably won't pull him up above 51% for very long if at all.