ON THE SAME PAGE?

DONALD RUMSFELD


Today, Don Rumsfeld basically confirmed what everyone with half a brain already pretty much figured - that Bush has no intention of changing his patented "stay the course" strategy. Appearing on Sean Hannity's loathsome radio program, Rumsfeld called media reports about Bush's reversal on 'stay the course' nonsense and said that Bush was of course not backing away from 'stay the course'".
What I find at least somewhat surprising is that Rummy is so steadfastly calling BS on the whole stay the course/change of course nonsense. Bush has come out intent on hoping to change the American's public mind and surrogates like Dan Bartlett have dutifully gone out and parroted the line.

Now Rummy goes out with Hannity and goes completely off script, calling any change from what they've been doing over the last three-plus years as nonsense. So, which is it? As I noted before, this is all semantics to the reality-based community since Bush would rather keel over a die than admit any kind of mistake, which a change on "stay the course" would certainly imply.

One thing that I wonder about is whatever happened to the vaunted message discipline coming out of this administration and all Republicans in general? A few short months ago, this sort of conflicting message would never have seeped out. Is the situation in Iraq, coupled with troublesome polling leading up to the midterms really knocking the Bushies off their game this much? Imagine how they'll be when the Dems take control of one or both houses of Congress. This could get really ugly.