Bush’s reaction to the ISG’s report concerns Dems

Good news: Bush isn’t too keen on some of the recommendations of the ISG’s report, released earlier this week, and it’s worrisome to Democrats:

WASHINGTON – Top Democrats in Congress left a White House meeting with President Bush on Friday frustrated over what they perceived as his reluctance to embrace major recommendations from the bipartisan Iraq Study Group.

Democrats stressed to Bush in separate meetings the dire need for the administration to revamp its Iraq policy, but they don’t expect him to embrace all 79 recommendations made this week by the panel, which was chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind.

As a side note, have you noticed the tone the media almost always takes when talking about a ‘bi-partisan’ commission? It’s almost one of the Absolute Moral Authority flavor, implying strongly that this group – being ‘bi-partisan’ – is free from bias in its findings because both Democrats and Republicans who are part of the group came to an agreement as to the recommendations. Bleh. But I digress.

Anyway, the fact that Dems are not happy over the strong possibly that the President won’t implement all of the recommendations made by the ISG is not only much-welcomed news for us, but more importantly, for the mission in Iraq. As Stop The ACLU noted in its blogger-reax roundup to the release of the ISG’s report, the consensus amongst conservatives is that the report equates to cut-and-run advocacy on the part of the ISG, and as I pointed out in my brief post on the report, the fact that Dems said after the report’s release that the ISG’s findings are “consistent” with their proposals told me that there would be very little in that report that I could be on board with.

In the meantime, the Washington Post reports this morning that the administration is focusing on “three main options” for strategies regarding how to move forward in Iraq:

The major alternatives include a short-term surge of 15,000 to 30,000 additional U.S. troops to secure Baghdad and accelerate the training of Iraqi forces. Another strategy would redirect the U.S. military away from the internal strife to focus mainly on hunting terrorists affiliated with al-Qaeda. And the third would concentrate political attention on supporting the majority Shiites and abandon U.S. efforts to reach out to Sunni insurgents.

Reactions from the lefty blogosphere on these options are decidedly negative as well. Another good sign.

Hat tip: Tom Maguire, who provides his own analysis on the three options mentioned in the WaPo piece.

Related: Make sure to check out Mr. Jules Crittenden’s latest blogpost masterpiece: Chickenus Dovus Asniniensis

Related II: Jeff Stein at Congressional Quarterly has an eye-popping report, the headline of which says it all: Democrats’ New Intelligence Chairman Needs a Crash Course on al Qaeda

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