It's Stay-The-Course Wednesday

As I'm sure you all know, George W. Bush went on television a couple of days ago and, despite the mind-numbing repetition with which Bush and his followers have used the phrase "stay the course" for Iraq -- and how they accuse anyone not going along with that as "cutting and running" -- he now says he's "never been stay-the-course."

After all, who are you going to believe, him or your lying eyes and ears?

And here's White House Press Secretary Tony Snow on Monday not only reinforcing the notion that Bush does not think like that, but saying that it's not the president's fault that he gave people that idea by repeating the phrase over and over as his primary strategy in Iraq:

Q: Tony, it seems what you have is not "stay the course." Has anybody told the President he should stop calling it "stay the course" then?

Snow: I don't think he's used that term in a while.

Q: Oh, yes, he has, repeatedly.

Snow: When?

Q: Well, in August, because I wrote a story saying he didn't use it and I was quite sternly corrected.

Snow: No, he stopped using it.

Q: Why would he stop using it?

Snow: Because it left the wrong impression about what was going on. And it allowed critics to say, well, here's an administration that's just embarked upon a policy and not looking at what the situation is, when, in fact, it's just the opposite. The President is determined not to leave Iraq short of victory, but he also understands that it's important to capture the dynamism of the efforts that have been ongoing to try to make Iraq more secure, and therefore, enhance the clarification -- or the greater precision.

Q: Is the President responsible for the fact people think it's stay the course since he's, in fact, described it that way himself?

Snow: No.

I'm sure George W. Bush doesn’t know a lot of things that are common knowledge to the rest of us, but one of those items seems to be the fact that video tape was invented 50 years ago. And, especially when you're the President of the United States and your every move and utterance is recorded, these lies have a way of coming back to haunt you pretty quickly. Have a look:



The stay-the-course theme is so common to the overriding Republican philosophy that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has even used it in a very effective ad:



I don’t know about you, but I'm staying the course. I'm going to keep working right up until election day to see that we get rid of the pack of crooks and pedophiles supporting Bush in the Congress.

I can sleep after November 7.