1115.org

Somehow the Bush propaganda machine had everyone convinced that the much ballyhooed New Iraq Policy would be unveiled by the Marketer-in-chief in a Major Speech before Christmas. So today all kinds of bloggers are running stories like this one:

Just last week, Bush administration officials were saying that they “tentatively expected” the president to announce his new Iraq policy in a speech during the week before Christmas. Put the emphasis on “tentatively.” White House press secretary Tony Snow said today that the president won’t be announcing his not-staying-the-course strategy until sometime in early 2007.

Why the delay? The president’s plan is “not ready yet,” Snow says. “It’s a complicated business and there are a lot of things to take into account.”

Some of us were never fooled. Here’s little old me on December 8:

Bush is going to twiddle his thumbs a while, and produce an new Iraq policy speech sometime – maybe by Christmas, maybe only in the new year.

(I didn’t just pull that out of thin air. I’d read something a day or two earlier which convinced me that despite what they were saying officially, the speech really wasn’t coming till January.)