The media kept telling us that Bush was going before the American public last night to buy more time for his Iraq strategy.

AP: “President Bush was set Thursday to ask the country for more time to let success bloom in Iraq…”

IHT: “…President George W. Bush was preparing Thursday to ask Americans for continued patience as he conditionally lowers the U.S. troop presence in Iraq…”

Baltimore Sun headline: “Bush to ask for more patience on war in Iraq”

WaPo headline: “In Speech, Bush Aims to Sway Opponents, Buy Time”

Buying time for his Iraq strategy? What pure distilled hogwash.

Let’s start with the last half of that. Apparently, when we will withdraw how many troops from Iraq now qualifies as strategy?

And it counts as strategy even though we have no choice but to withdraw some troops, because there simply aren’t enough troops to go around, because Bush made the tough political decision that we would fight on the front lines of TWAT without instituting a draft, because the only sacrifices Bush was willing to ask America to make were to keep spending money and to watch the news on TV.

Thus do the Bushies bring us yet another revolutionary concept to extend our understanding of the Theory and Principles of War: involuntary war strategy.

In related news, Bush’s strategy for getting through his day tomorrow is to keep on breathing.

Now, about this buying time nonsense. Who, pray, makes up the selling side of this market? Who is supposed to be selling Bush this time? It sure as hell isn’t the American people.

In fact, it’s perfectly clear that Bush has no interest in being on the buying side of this market either. Bush doesn’t give a flying f**k what the American people want or think. Bush proposes — as he has always done from the beginning of this misbegotten war — to do exactly what he wants without giving a damn about what anybody else thinks (standard exception applies–Laura and Barney). He doesn’t feel the need to buy time, not from the American people, not from anyone else.

He didn’t ask us for patience. He told us we don’t have a ruddy choice. Once again.

The label they put on it, for PR reasons, was “Return on Success”. The reality masked by that label? “Up Yours, America!”