For a group that prides itself on message discipline is this really the best the White House political and communications shops can do?  Letting the President go out and say that if we leave Iraq then Al-Qaeda comes in and sets up an Islamic caliphate on the day the White House announces a new anti-terrorism strategy that says Al-Qaeda's all washed up and we're not going to worry about them?  Then again why let Ken Mehlman go on Meet the Press and reject the suggestion that White House policy in Iraq is "stay the course" and then let the President, administration officials and Republican politicians say just that in speech after speech.  In fact the President made the same rhetorical stance as recently as last week?  Yep, that was two weeks after the Mehlman "adapt and win" meme failed to take off.

No matter.  Pundits will probably tell you this rhetorical disconnect, ala Mehlman, means Republicans are trying to energize they're base while hoping to pick up independents by seeming to address their concerns.  I would suggest this is probably true but in reality they've created an unworkable policy, bound themselves to it, wrapped "Mom, apple pie and the flag" around it, flogged it unmercifully for years and really don't know what to do having shunned any sort of honest bipartisan debate or oversight of the matter.  Yet again, the White House has painted themselves into a corner and are unwilling to address a major foreign policy failure as anything more than a public relations problem:  No new strategy, no new policies just a President who seems to think that if he says the same thing he said two years ago, only in a more agitated manner, then obviously people will trust his judgement.  Well, at least Ed Henry seems to buy it?