"In the moment before his successor is inaugurated, he'll still be trying to make it work in Iraq"

[Human Torch]

However bleak the President's situation may look to outsiders, aides say he appears to be reveling in campaigning, and was joking about Detroit Tigers pitcher Kenny Rogers' doing better in the World Series than he did when he played for Bush's Texas Rangers in the 1990s. "Sometimes he'll premise a point he makes by saying 'Call me Mr. Happy, but I think ...' or 'I know I'm Mr. Optimism, but ...,'" says an aide. A presidential adviser who has recently talked to Bush says he believes the President will finish stronger than most people think, largely because of the determination that critics call stubbornness. "This guy, at 11:59 and 58 seconds on the 20th of January 2009, in the moment before his successor is inaugurated, is still going to be trying to make it work in Iraq," the adviser says. "He really believes it can work, and he believes that his will can be part of a formula to make it work in Iraq, and that's a course for us to defeat radical Islamic terrorism."

Friends describe a President who knows he's the same person today that he was at his Gallup-poll peak of 90% approval after 9/11 and that he was in the depths of 31% last spring. In Journeys with George, her documentary about Bush's first campaign, former NBC producer Alexandra Pelosi--who, as it happens, is the daughter of the woman who has the most to gain in these elections--tells of being invited to Bush's private compartment on his campaign plane when she was having a low moment. "They can say what they want about me," she remembered him saying, "but at least I know who I am, and I know who my friends are." As Bush girds for tectonic change, that certitude will be tested as never before.

:eyes:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1552033-5,00.html

[Olney Blue]

1. Isn't that the same as "stay the course"?

[sarge43]

4. Or insanity

Doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result.

[Suich]

2. Ignorance is bliss.

:hi:

[Gatchaman]

3. I'm just comforted a bush admin official says he'll be leaving office

when his term is up.

[Hav]

5. .

That's a pic out of a horror movie...did he bite her?

[unkachuck]

6. wrong....

"This guy, at 11:59 and 58 seconds on the 20th of January 2009, in the moment before his successor is inaugurated, is still going to be trying to make it work in Iraq,"....bullshit, bush and the pukes want/need Iraq unresolved, period....

....when a Dem takes over in January '09 repugs want the whole Iraq debacle front and center on his/her plate tainting the new Dem admistration from day one....

....and if we spend 4 years trying to resolve Iraq with no success, and we will, the repugs will label us as incompetant failures....since they handed us 'a near-success in Iraq'....

....if we spend 4 years screwing around with Iraq, we will have little time or money for social programs or anything else....

....if we pull-out before 4 years are up, the repugs and their corporate media stooges will repeatedly claim that we caused the loss of Iraq and that the catastrophic situation in the Middle East, is all our fault....and it will also be our fault should a terrorist attack occur here....

....no, they want/need the Iraqi-tar-baby handed to us....but then you already know that....this a bush/repug war of corporate profit and choice and they need to own it, love it, cherish it and most of all, reslove it before 2009....

....as far as I'm concerned, the new Dem congress that's about to be elected has one main mission, force a resolution in Iraq and prepared the ground work so the new Dem president in 2009 will have a clean plate on day one....then we can get serious about doing the peoples business....

....are we our of Iraq yet?....why not?....out of Iraq, NOW!!

[Vickers]

7. I think he'll be patting the half-pint in his jacket pocket.

Yee-haw, let's git awl likkered up, y'all! :spank:

[gratuitous]

8. No brains

No pains