Bush misses the point, loses credibility

Judging by the questioning at Bush's recent "benchmark" press conference, nobody in the media believes he has any credibility anymore. Right-wing blogs seize on this as "liberal media bias". Yeah, it's the same "liberal media" that silently and uncritically passed along every distortion from the White House for the past four years. He might as well just bring a parrot that squawks "Al-Qaeda! Al-Qaeda!" as try to run through the same old material.
His obssession with Al-Qaeda has grown tired. He keeps repeating a standard one-note tune that can be summarised as "Al-Qaeda is bad!" Yeah, we all know Al-Qaeda is bad, Mr. Bush. Nobody's arguing with you there. This occupation was supposed to be about getting the Iraqi military up and running, standing on it's own. It also was supposed to be about stabilising the political situation and getting an Iraqi government solid enough to, maybe, have a quorum. The best way to get rid of Al-Qaeda from Iraq is to have an effective Iraqi military and an effective Iraqi government, not a few dozen armed militias and provinces looking out for themselves. Instead, it's become an Al-Qaeda manhunt, while the military and government continue to be as feeble and impotent as ever. To those who do support Al-Qaeda (hint: it's not the American public) this just makes Al-Qaeda look strong.
"Al-Qaeda is bad" simply does not translate into "endless occupation of a failed state at a cost of $2 billion a week" in the minds of the public. "Al-Qaeda is bad" does not correlate with " we accept your continuing smiley pronouncements" or "we believe whatever your ventriloquist dummies say" to the vast majority of the American people.
He also continues to hammer away on his desire to "listen to the commanders on the ground", when everyone knows what happened to Shinseki when he stopped telling the Decider good news. If Petraeus were to come out publicly and say "The Iraqi military and government are hopeless basket cases, and nothing will truly turn around until that changes", then we'd see a new "commander on the ground" in a week. The new guy would be a hand-picked toady ready and eager to parrot exactly what he's told. Bush would then continue to "listen to his commanders on the ground", as they would say exactly what he wants to hear. Petraeus knows what would happen to his men under those circumstances, so he plays the game.
Ironically, when the surge is finally admitted to be a failure, it wil be Petraeus who will take the fall. Be sure to watch for Republicans, Fox News pundits, and right-wing blogs to turn on the man who they so eagerly rely on for every bit of positive spin when this happens.
Even if Petraeus succeeds in expelling Al-Qaeda from Iraq, Iraq will still look more like Somalia for a long time to come. How can any sane person say that would be worth a trillion dollars and 4000 servicemen's lives? The public sees this, and all of Bush's crowing about how bad Al-Qaeda is won't change this. When the Shiite government of Al-Maliki tries to extend it's control over the "success" of Sunni Anbar province, the Sunni gangs that we backed will tear the Iraqi forces to shreds. The White House will simply pull a new scapegoat out of the hat in this case.
For the moment Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Iran are waiting on the sidelines to intervene in their own interests. What will happen when they decide it's time to make their move? Screeching about Al-Qaeda won't help then. The Republicans and right-wing media, who so loudly profess concern about innocent Iraqis, will simply shrug and let the next President deal with it.
By equating critics of the occupation with supporters of Al-Qaeda, Bush has made a serious error. Polls have shown that the public does not buy his Iraqi Central Front thesis, nor his "fight them there" slogan. Even someone with low intelligence can figure out that nothing is preventing Al-Qaeda from attacking us right now, regardless of how many troops we have in Iraq. Informed people know that Al-Qaeda wasn't even in Iraq until after we invaded. Disillusionment with the occupation is so strong that even war supporters would have a hard time believing that friends, family, co-workers, etc. are actually supporters of Al-Qaeda when they dissent.
The truth is, Bush stopped talking to the American public years ago. His speeches are now exclusively geared to the 20% who will support him no matter what. As this 20% sputters in rage at reporters disrespectful enough to actually question the Decider's credibility, Republicans facing re-election will have to admit, at least to themselves, that this 20% can't save them and are just a millstone around their neck.
Just like the three protesters who denounced Hinduism as "wicked" and "an abomination", this 20% are really just hate-filled bigots who care little for democracy, much less the facts.