[Pangloss62]

So let's get this right. Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, said
that W. constantly using the term "stay the course" "...left the wrong
impression." Really? So why the hell had he been using it so much before?
So what is Snow saying, that W. stopped using the term on his own, or that
Rove TOLD HIM to stop using it?

Why is it that after weeks and weeks of Bush saying we must "stay the
course" that only now his minions determine that it "gives the wrong
impression?" You think it's because all the polls say that people are mad
at his previous "stay the course" philosophy, not to mention the rationale
for going to war in the first place? Remember, Snow's spin is coming from
the same organization that fed "fake" news to TV stations around the
country. How about "Mission Accomplished?" So either we have a president
that, when he thinks on his own, "gives the wrong impression," or we have a
PR Firm that has read the tea leaves of public opinion and has dropped one
of their tag lines from the W. rhetoric machine. Either W is the
intellectual dunce many believe him to be, or he is just a mouthpiece for a
PR firm. Either scenario is pretty scary.

And while I do think the Democrats are great at turning lemonade into
lemons, is it really their place to come up with a "plan" for withdrawal
from Iraq? It's not like they have much political power to do so (at least
now). I can just see Nancy Pelosi handing a withdrawal plan to Rummey:
"Here Mr. Rusmfeld; run with it! The first part of the plan is that you
get fired!"

Here's a piece from today's NYT:


Brother of N.F.L. Star Posts Antiwar Essay

By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
Published: October 24, 2006
LOS ANGELES, Oct. 23 â?? A brother of Pat Tillman, the National Football
League player who was killed in combat in Afghanistan after leaving his
sports career to serve in the Army, has lashed out at the Iraq war in an
essay published online.


Pat Tillman, center, who was killed in Afghanistan in 2004, with his
brothers Richard, left, and Kevin at his wedding in San Jose, Calif.



Go to Election GuideMore Politics NewsThe brother, Kevin Tillman, who was
in the same Army Ranger unit as Pat Tillman, a corporal who was killed on
April 22, 2004, by fire from his fellow soldiers under circumstances that
the Pentagon continues to investigate, sharply criticized American
political leadership and called the war â??an illegal invasion.â??

â??Somehow the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal
invasion becomes,â?? Mr. Tillman wrote in the 660-word essay that was posted
on Thursday on Truthdig .com, a Web magazine offering news and opinion from
a â??progressive point of view.â??

â??Somehow,â?? Mr. Tillman added, â??American leadership, whose only credit is
lying to its people and illegally invading a nation, has been allowed to
steal the courage, virtue and honor of its soldiers on the ground.â??

In what are apparently his most expansive public remarks since the death of
his brother at age 27, he also does not spare the American public, which he
suggests too often relies on superficial gestures to support the troops
instead of holding politicians accountable.

â??Somehow back at home, support for the soldiers meant having a 5-year-old
kindergartener scribble a picture with crayons and send it overseas or
slapping stickers on cars or lobbying Congress for an extra pad in a
helmet,â?? he wrote.

Mr. Tillman ended with a suggestion that the elections on Nov. 7 are an
opportunity for people opposed to the war to send a message.

â??Luckily this country is still a democracy,â?? he wrote. â??People still have
a
voice. People can still take action. It can start after Patâ??s birthday,â??
Nov. 6.

Despite Pat Tillmanâ??s fame and the outpouring of emotion after his death,
the Tillman family has generally kept a distance from antiwar protesters,
though they have often spoken of their efforts to find the truth about what
happened. Family members did not answer messages for comment on Kevin
Tillmanâ??s posting.

A spokeswoman for the Pat Tillman Foundation in San Jose, Calif., where the
Tillmans grew up, said, â??It is our understanding that Kevin Tillman is not
accepting interview requests.â??

Pat Tillman, a safety for the Arizona Cardinals, left the team in spring
2002 to join the Army along with Kevin Tillman, motivated in part by the
Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and eventually training as a Ranger. After a stint
in Iraq, the brothers were sent to Afghanistan.

Pat Tillman died, the Army eventually concluded, after members of his own
unit shot him as they searched for enemy fighters in a canyon in
southeastern Afghanistan. An Afghan soldier fighting next to him also died.

Kevin Tillmanâ??s essay was posted as Pentagon investigators close in on the
latest of several investigations into the case. Initially, the Army had
suggested that enemy fire had killed Pat Tillman. Later, the Army conceded
that his comrades had shot him.

Under pressure from the family and members of Congress, the inspector
general of the Defense Department and the Army Criminal Investigation
Command are examining the actions of members of Mr. Tillmanâ??s unit and the
initial investigation.

Daniel Kohns, a spokesman for Representative Michael M. Honda of
California, a Democrat from San Jose, who pushed for the investigations,
said Pentagon representatives said a month ago that they expected to
complete their work by the end of November or early December.

A spokesman for the Pentagon said Monday that the investigations were
continuing. He declined to comment on Kevin Tillmanâ??s essay.

Robert Scheer, a liberal syndicated columnist and the editor of Truthdig,
based in Santa Monica, Calif., said he had written about the case and had
spoken to family members in the past.

Kevin Tillmanâ??s article was not solicited, Mr. Scheer said, and the site
agreed to Mr. Tillmanâ??s conditions for posting it. The conditions were that
it be posted unchanged aside from grammatical editing, including the
headline he had written, â??After Patâ??s Birthday.â??

Mr. Scheer said Mr. Tillman had made it known that, after leaving the
military last year, he felt now was time to speak out, with his brotherâ??s
birthday approaching. Pat Tillman also had expressed anger about the war to
friends, several published reports have said.

â??He is not proselytizing, he is not a political person,â?? Mr. Scheer said of
Kevin Tillman. â??He just decided because his birthday was coming up he felt
strongly that he had to say something.â??

Since the article went up on the Web site, it has received more than 4,000
responses, though Web server limits have prohibited publishing that many,
Mr. Scheer said.