Shrub sounding manly

No, faithful reader(s), this time Shrub is not holding his breath (as here and here) to make his critics stop demanding an Iraq pull-out. He is kvelling at the thought of his future legacy as the man who let loose the dogs or war,... oops, the Mandarin meant to say, the man who put freedom on the march in the Middle East.

Today's headline article:

Bush says U.S. won't withdraw from Iraq

RIGA, Latvia -

President Bush, under pressure to change direction in Iraq, said Tuesday he will not be persuaded by any calls to withdraw American troops before the country is stabilized. "There's one thing I'm not going to do, I'm not going to pull our troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete," he said in a speech setting the stage for high-stakes meetings with the Iraqi prime minister later this week. "We can accept nothing less than victory for our children and our grandchildren."

Well, two things popped into the Mandarin's little head right away.

First, did Shrub just say that it will be our children and grandchildren who will finally secure victory in Iraq?

And secondly, it is now crystal clear that Shrub is not an aficionado of George Carlin, one of whose most famous lines (referring to Vietnam) was:

We’re always afraid of pulling out. “Pull out? Doesn’t sound manly to me, Bill. Let’s leave it in there, get the job done!" Because that’s what we’re doing to that country, after all…

And Shrub is never one to avoid an opportunity to look like a manly man, even without a "Mission Accomplished" banner and a strategically padded flight suit.


Original photo caption: U.S. President George W. Bush wells up as he finishes a speech at the University of Latvia in Riga, Latvia November 28, 2006. Bush, in Latvia for the NATO summit, appealed to NATO allies to provide more troops with fewer national restrictions for the alliance's most dangerous mission in Afghanistan. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)