Damage Control

Dwight Meredith analyzes why Bush would "absolutely" do the flight suit stunt again. As weird as that answer may seem to be, any other answer to the question would have been much worse for him.

"When Mr. Bush answered that he 'absolutely' would have done it again, he is able to stick to the story that 'mission accomplished' referred only to the mission of the crew of Lincoln and not to the war as a whole. He can spin his stunt as a way of rewarding and supporting the troops. If 'mission accomplished' is confined to a discrete mission of the men and women of the Lincoln, no difficult follow up questions arise.

If he answered 'no,' even a semi-competent interviewer would want to know 'why not?' The negative answer would require an examination of the Iraq situation Mr. Bush expected, the reality of the situation as it actually exists, and the reasons for the differences. That is one conversation that Mr. Bush does not want to have in front of the American people.

John Aravosis of AmericaBlog thinks that Mr. Bush's answer may be his 'political death warrant. I think that the fall out from having to answer the follow up questions from a 'no' answer would be far worse for Mr. Bush.

Mr. Bush's answer of 'absolutely' was a form of damage control. "