Stand behind the troops, don't hide behind them

Why is it that any criticism of the Bush administration's execution of the war in Iraq equate to a denigration of the troops? Our troops are adults. They can take criticism and if they screw up they deserve it (didn't one of them get 10 years jail time for torture recently-- does that mean we aren't supporting our troops? I don't think so. Others may disagree). Conversely the president doesn't seem to be able to take criticism. That doesn't change the fact that if he has screwed up he deserves it.

Talking point from Friday's Presidential Debate

I'm probably not the first one to come up with this, and surely not the last but here goes...

If the president can't even keep track of his own business, how can we trust him to keep track of our nation's business?

VP Debate

Personally I thought the debate ended in stalemate. I thought that Edward's explaination of the $87 billion dollar vote was definately not as good as it could have been and that the constant focus on Halliburton draws attention to what amounts to a rather minor issue for observers who believe this administration has handled the war incompetently.

Cheney was able to get a lot of jabs in but almost all of it was the same old tired stuff everyone hears on the news day after day.

So I was surpised to see several polls that favored Edwards as well as the ABC poll that favored Cheney. In the end, however, I think Cheney falls short of several obvious mis-statements and and addition to the factcheck.com fiasco.

A Global test

Juan Cole of Informed Comment has explained what I'd been thinking but have been too lazy to put into words.

Bush appears weak when he hides behind the troops

If Bush wants to convince the American people that he has made the right decisions regarding the invasion and reconstruction of Iraq he needs to argue the merits. When his primary defense (or offense) relies on equating criticism him with inadequate support for the troops does nothing to counter the actual charges.

If you're a Bush supporter you probably don't want to read this

Bush: He's not just stupid anymore*. Now he's stupid and wrong.

*Disclaimer: I really don't have any objective proof President Bush is stupid. My personal opinion is that he's actually probably pretty smart. Not all that great at spontaneous public speaking, but overall probably pretty smart.