Forever

Never gonna leave:

In Amman, Bush sought to pre-empt the growing clamor to draft plans to withdraw the more than 140,000 U.S. troops stationed in Iraq, most notably by a high-level commission headed by former Secretary of State James C. Baker III and former Indiana Rep. Lee H. Hamilton. Although he was not asked directly about the panel's recommendations, which will be made next week but were partially leaked to news reporters late Wednesday, Bush seemed to have the group in mind when he said, "This business about graceful exit just simply has no realism to it whatsoever."

Bush has a track record of changing policies on a dime, such as when he ousted Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld only days after saying he would stay until the end of his term. But his comments today, coupled with other statements in the past few days, seemed to set firm lines on Iraq beyond which the president will not be pushed, despite growing discontent with his policy at home.

As Jim Wolcott wrote:

...not only is Bush unable to avoid catastrophe, he's unwilling to, because that would mean he was wrong, and Bush can't admit he was wrong--the cracks of doubt would bring his entire psychic superstructure crashing. And at that point we'd have a presidential crisis that would make Nixon's lunar unraveling look like a teddy bear's picnic.

Keep this in mind.

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