a political war

What is better, a leader who never admits he's wrong or one who can recognize a mistake and change ocurse to adapt? Bush's campaign would have you believe the latter is a "flip flopper." The former, however, borders on insanity.

Note that the link is being touted by others in the liberal blogsphere for Bush's astonishing statement that he'd dress up in a flght suit and prance on an aircraft carrier and say "mission accomplished" all over again. Forget about the technical truth of the statement (though all must admit that the invasion of Iraq, unlike the subsequent occupation, was a masterful affair).

What struck me far more than that however was this statement by Bush on Falluja:

But Bush said he also did not regret the decision to withdraw U.S. forces from the rebel stronghold of Falluja earlier this year because he believed the conflict there could have jeopardized the June handover of sovereignty to Iraqis.

"A lot of people on the ground there thought that if we'd have gone into Falluja at the time, the interim government would not have been established," Bush said.

Look, I'm no military expert, but I do know that Falluja is a mini-Taliban state at present. And Bush flip-flopped in the worst possible way - first ordering the invasion, the rescinding it, for purely political purposes (Kevin Drum nicely summarizes Bush's Plans A - D). That indescision, imposed upon our troops from above, surely gave the sunni fanatics there "Aid and Comfort". After being lectured on the evil of Clinton's Somalia moment for years by rabid Bush partisans, I should think that at least some iota of intellectual honesty would compel more widespread outrage. Sadly, no.