END OF DENIAL? A curious headline popped up on the New York Times homepage today: "Bush Offers Gloomy Assessment of Iraq." In an Associated Press story on remarks by the president delivered this morning from the East Room of the White House, Bush, against precedent, actually spoke of the number of deaths suffered by American troops this month -- 93 so far. The AP described the occasion of the president's foray into the reality-based community as "a speech and question and answer session at the White House 13 days before midterm elections." A last-gasp attempt, apparently, to close that credibility gap. The White House likely finds itself stung by yesterday's MSNBC/McClatchy poll, which shows the war in Iraq having a serious impact on the Senate races. Most unnerving, one would think, is the close race between Harold Ford, Jr., and Bob Corker in Tennessee, in which the Democrat advocates a plan for an American pullout after dividing Iraq into three autonomous regions.
--Adele M. Stan
