Hadley to meet with GOP senators to shore up waning support for war

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19705236/

White House to back Iraq policy on Hill

Hadley to meet with GOP senators to shore up waning support for war

Updated: 6:16 a.m. CT July 11, 2007

WASHINGTON - As the Senate debates taking a new course in Iraq, President Bush’s national security adviser scheduled a meeting with more than a dozen Republican senators in a bid to shore up eroding support for the war.

Stephen Hadley was to visit Capitol Hill on Wednesday — one of many such forays in recent days — as the White House finalized a 23-page progress report on Iraq that concludes the government in Baghdad has made little progress in meeting reform goals laid down by Bush and Congress.

Iraq’s inability to pass laws considered key to national cohesion and economic recovery or achieve other major milestones has prompted a backlash by Bush’s one-time staunch political defenders.
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At least 10 Republicans in recent weeks have said the United States should start reducing the military’s role in Iraq, with the latest challenge to the president’s Iraq strategy coming Tuesday from Sen. Elizabeth Dole.

“Simply put, our troops have been doing a great job, but the Iraqi government has not,” Dole, R-N.C., said. “Our commitment in Iraq is not indefinite, nor should the Iraqi government perceive it to be. It is my firm hope and belief that we can start bringing our troops home in 2008.”

Up to 20 GOP senators were invited to the meeting with Hadley to discuss the war.

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akin to mopping up a tidal wave with a whisk broom.

Hadley is pathetically unpersuasive. Especially when he's selling damaged goods.

This week he is telling them what they should think. Which is, according to Novak, what the Senators thought he was doing last week when he claimed he was there to listen. This week they are apparently dropping the pretense ("we listened to you; now you listen to us").

Of course, it isn't even a matter of who is listening to whom. These GOP Senators have joined Democrats in dealing with the "reality based" situation in Iraq instead of the "faith based". I used to think Bush et al were just pandering with their stated belief that we can not lose because God wants us to win. I have come to believe that Bush et al are serious, and I think some of the panderers in the GOP have come to that conclusion as well.

instead of sending his minions, like Hadley. Or is Cheney and the neocon cabal afraid that the Senators will expose the Chimp to too much reality and rupture his carefully-maintained bubble?