Gulfstream: 14 December 2003

“The only presidential candidate with a truly coherent position on President Bush’s Iraq policy is President Bush. He supported it before the war started, he supports it now, and he thinks or pretends to think it’s working well. … Like mice frustrated in a maze, the [Democratic] candidates seek escape routes out of this logical trap. Sometimes they say that the current mess is not the result of the decision to go to war. It is the result of Bush’s inept leadership during the war and/or the postwar occupation. … But the resolution these gentlemen supported gave war-making authority to George W. Bush, not to some idealized, all-knowing president such as themselves. … If Bush bungled this authority, entrusting him with it was a big mistake.”