Strick: "Why does that matter? "(if the UN will in fact bail W out by his election-inspired 30 June deadline) (posting 17 April 04 11:58 AM)

Why? Because it has to do with the election--which is all Bush cares about.


His tender feelings for the Iraqi people are, to say the least, rather low on his list of priorities, considerably below, for instance, his tender feelings for Americans deprived of their right to own semi-automatic weapons.

If he can by any means put the UN officially in charge of the Iraqi governing body (such as it is) on 30 June or soon thereafter, even if the US pulls the strings behind the scenes, he has a ready-made scapegoat if anything goes wrong. After all, that's what Teribus suggests (20 April 04 4:24 AM post). Depending on what happens before the election, the UN could indeed be Bush's political salvation. That would be the height of irony.

He may not be able to bring any troops home beaming for the camera any time soon (even a few would be election nirvana) but his team has other ideas. I'm sure broadband conversations with soldiers "on the front lines of freedom" are on the agenda, for instance.

One need not be a believer in wooly conspiracies of co-opting Iraqi resources on a permanent basis (an idea which might well blow up in his face) to see that absolutely everything Bush does between now and November will be geared to the election.   Also, since so many Americans unfortunately get their news from TV coverage, photo ops become very important, dismayingly so to anybody who gets information from other sources.