Liberal Talk Radio

According to this NYT piece post-”surge” withdrawl plan is coming into focus in the White House, replete with off-putting metaphors:

Administration officials say that if Mr. Bush talked now about pulling back forces at the end of this year or next spring, he would only provide new ammunition for those Democrats and a growing number of Republicans who are pushing for legislation to set timelines for the withdrawal of some of the 150,000 American forces.

The argument inside the White House last week, one official said, was over “how much leg to show” of that strategy. Karl Rove, the president’s top political adviser, was among those arguing for showing very little, and judging by Mr. Bush’s performance in his first news conference in a newly renovated White House press room, Mr. Rove won the day.

With that advice in mind, Mr. Bush described the follow-on mission in Iraq only in the broadest of terms. Perhaps one reason is that it bears tremendous resemblance to the narrow mission recommended by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group in December and rejected as premature by Mr. Bush in his January announcement of a significant troop increase.

I’m not sure I get how this goes down. The Democrats don’t have the votes to stop the war. Will Bush really admit defeat of his own volition? That would be suicide for the party. He’s got to try to find a way to take the Democrats with him on his way down. At least, that’s surely what Rove is thinking.