Iraq as a comma

President Bush is being rightly criticized for a remark that can be construed as callous


First published: nov 2,2006

Oh, where to begin. President Bush's handling of an Iraq war that was ill advised from the start, has him plagued by a long and growing list of what he needs to do to get out of this mess.
A new defense secretary is critical, of course. It's scandalous that Donald Rumsfeld has not been held properly accountable for a war launched with not nearly enough troops, and for the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. More troops are needed, or would be if the mission was indeed salvageable. So, too, is something resembling an exit plan.

And, not least, a new speechwriter and someone else in charge of image control for the commander in chief. President Bush is in trouble in some quarters for his declaration that the difficulties the United States faces in Iraq will be seen in time as "just a comma" in a history that will culminate with a functioning democracy.

It's the election last December, when 12 million people voted, that deserves the mention that incessant violence doesn't. Or so says Mr. Bush.

"Admittedly, it seems like a decade ago," the President said in a Sept. 24 CNN interview. "I like to tell people when the final history is written on Iraq, it will look like just a comma because there is -- my point is, there's a strong will for democracy."

He made that same point, The Washington Post reports, as he campaigned for Republican congressional candidates in Alabama last week and in California this week.

That's insensitive, however determined Mr. Bush is that the war he started have a successful outcome. He shouldn't be saying things that can be construed as glossing over what the war has involved so far.

The casualties of that war in particular, more than 2,700 American servicemen and servicewomen so far, deserve better. So many of them have died such valiant deaths, in combat situations where they were needlessly outnumbered. For them, war is quite real, altogether permanent -- and hardly a comma.

A President who suggests as much is all but asking that such callousness be more than a footnote in the history of him and his war. After-the-fact explanations don't help very much.

"He's making a historical analysis -- that these brief periods seem long and protracted now, but when you look back at them in history, they won't seem that way," says presidential aide Dan Bartlett. "He's definitely not discounting the loss of life or the sacrifice people are making."

Let's hear that from Mr. Bush himself, then. Clarity is in order before he's undermined by his own use of commas.

wow depseration

bush calls the war in iraq a comma in history,theres no big deal,kerry botches a joke hes evil,bush is a saint in the right wings eyes

we heard you the first time. It was desperate then and it's desperation now

In a historical sense he is right. It is a comma.

__________________
When seconds count, Police are only minutes away.

In the scope of TIME, all of Mankinds reign wil be less than a comma:-O

Maybe Mr. Bush has more going on in the realm of CLARITY, than you are able to comprehend:-O

Just a supposition:-)

In the scope of time, and all...............