Demagogue

After listening to President Bush's SOTU speech, Slate's Fred Kaplan is more convinced than ever that the prez doesn't understand what's happening in Iraq and why. He writes:

"I ask you to give it a chance to work," the president (uncharacteristically) pleaded ... (and) he proposed to set up a "special advisory council on the war on terrorism, made up of leaders in Congress from both political parties," to "share ideas for how to position America" to meet today's challenges and to "show our enemies abroad that we are united in the goal of security."

The thing is, there already are advisory councils. They're called the congressional committees on foreign relations, armed services, and intelligence.

President Bush had his chance with the ideas of a bipartisan council, the Iraq Study Group headed by James Baker and Lee Hamilton. He dismissed them out of hand.

... [Bush] said that [Iraq is] very important—"a decisive ideological struggle," he called it, adding, "nothing is more important at this moment in our history than for America to succeed."

And yet he also said that America's commitment to the war is "not open-ended." How can both claims be true? If nothing is more important, it must be open-ended. If it's not open-ended, it can't be all that important.