Gaming the War: Bush Seeks to Win Back the Public

Sept. 13, 2007 — -- Here are 10 things we know heading into President Bush's 9 pm ET address on the Iraq war this evening:

1. Rudolph Giuliani isn't voting for Hillary Clinton, and Mitt Romney isn't voting for Barack Obama.

2. All of the Republicans -- including John McCain -- would rather attack Democrats (and Moveon.org) than back the president's strategy.

3. All of the Democrats -- particularly Barack Obama -- would rather talk about the president's mistakes (though not necessarily their own votes) than what to do next.

4. There will be more than 100,000 US troops in Iraq on Jan. 20, 2009, and there might be 150,000.

5. There will be more than 100 congressional hearings on Iraq before Nov. 4, 2008, and there might be 1,000.

6. Obama sounds like an NPR listener -- and just may be a big Ted Koppel fan.

7. John Edwards is copying Fred Thompson's playbook (!), and while he needs to find a cheaper way to dominate the message wars, his two-minute (paid) rebuttal to the president will make him the envy of the news cycle.

8. The Democrats who want to be president will -- again -- be pushing an uncomfortable congressional majority leftward.

9. Gen. David Petraeus bought the president a smidge of wiggle room on Iraq -- and a bit more time.

10. That may not be a good thing for the GOP (and the White House will severely miss Tony Snow as that dynamic develops).

The president's speech has the feel of overkill (hasn't his team made his points for him already this week?), yet that doesn't diminish the stakes as he tries to get the public back on his side (or, at least, not wholly against him) for one last push.

Democrats aren't buying that his plan means real troop withdrawals, but Bush is seeking to reclaim the "uniter" mantle nonetheless with a different tone, if not a major change in substance.

"With lawmakers openly skeptical of his troop buildup, Mr. Bush will cast his plan for a gradual, limited withdrawal as a way to bring a divided America together -- even as he resists demands from those who want him to move much faster," write Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Steven Lee Myers of The New York Times.

Democratic leaders in Congress know there's little they can do to force the president's hand (though we won't hear that admission from Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., in his rebuttal tonight). But the 2008 candidates have begun to find their voices again on Iraq -- in ways that seem destined to make congressional leaders squirm.

Obama, D-Ill., unveiled his latest Iraq plan yesterday -- and though it's not really that different than Clinton's, he included plenty of veiled shots at the Democratic frontrunner.

"It was not lost on Obama's audience at Ashford University -- in the town of Clinton, of all places -- whom he meant to single out as a politician who failed to read the Iraq intelligence for herself: Hillary Clinton," Newsweek's Richard Wolffe writes.

But Obama isn't saying how he'll vote on the question of troop funding when and if it comes to that again in Congress -- a (lack of) position that is drawing him fire from Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and will also no doubt provoke Edwards, D-N.C.

"When asked if he would 'tell leadership that a vote to continue to fund this war without a concrete timetable for withdrawal is wrong,' Obama would not tip his hand," ABC's Jonathan Greenberger reports.

Greenberger also noticed Obama sounding very much like former ABC News anchor Ted Koppel in one analogy he's using to criticize the president's plan for troop deployments.

Obama yesterday: "So they raised prices 25 percent, and then they say we're going to slash prices by 25 percent. And you start thinking you got a real bargain on your hands. Until you realize that they pulled a fast one on you."

Koppel, a day earlier on NPR: "We don't even particularly care that the price may have been jacked up before it was slashed. There's something about a 25 percent-off sale that sets our pulses pounding. Thirty-thousand U.S. troops out of Iraq by next summer. What a deal."

Clinton, D-N.Y., isn't buying this as a troop withdrawal either: "Taking credit for this troop reduction is like taking credit for the sun coming up in the morning," she said yesterday, arguing that the troops were scheduled to come home anyway, per ABC's Eloise Harper.

And recent polls show that whatever Clinton is doing on the war seems to be working, the Los Angeles Times' Peter Wallsten writes.

It is "a paradox of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination: Although a plurality of Democratic voters considers the Iraq war to be the most pressing issue facing the candidates, the more hawkish Clinton has found a sweet spot in the debate."

Per Washingtonpost.com's Chris Cillizza, "Clinton's strategic decision not to apologize [for her war vote], which aides insist was the result of her own personal conviction not any sort of political calculation, looked like a mistake at the time but, to date, has paid off. By not apologizing, Clinton avoided being painted as a craven politician who will say and do anything to be elected. And, so far, the base hasn't punished her for the lack of an apology."

Edwards will have two minutes of nationally televised rebuttal time all to himself this evening after the president's address -- but he's paying for it, on MSNBC.

This will make things more uncomfortable for Obama and Clinton: "Tell Congress you know the truth," Edwards says in the ad, per the AP's Nedra Pickler.

"They have the power to end this war and you expect them to use it. When the president asks for more money and more time, Congress needs to tell him he only gets one choice -- a firm timeline for withdrawal."