Bush's Doublethink

The most peculiar passage in President Bush’s much-dissected “surge” speech was this: “I have made it clear to the prime minister [Nouri al-Maliki] and Iraq’s other leaders that America’s commitment is not open-ended. If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people.”

What could the president have meant by that? On one level it’s a waste of time to even ask the question. Bush says what he needs to say in order to justify whatever it is he wants to do. The standard isn’t truth and logic but appearance. How will it look to the American people and, presumably, historians far in the future?

But on another level it profits us to examine his words, for they measure how deeply this administration insults the intelligence of the American people. Judging by the polls, they aren’t falling for it.

Read the rest of this week's op-ed, "Bush's Doublethink," at The Future of Freedom Foundation website.