Bush's heart-to-heart w/ undecideds

Reports (fair reports, that is) of the president's presser today (here) are lifting my spirits and my Party's prospects.

The difference between resolve and stubbornness is in the eyes of the beholder, and Dubya has gone a long way today in realizing that Americans need to be assured that his actions in Iraq are impelled by the former.

But it's interesting to see how such rhetoric--in my view, simply reiterating for the cameras that war is hell and that he is not a warmonger, will bring voters to the GOP. It's politically-dicey defending caricatures of Bush's Iraq policies, and it is perhaps even dicier to make arguments that your party head isn't making (that's the shortest path to being called a "shill"), but Bush removes those difficulties by speaking out.

Most voters don't believe Democrats (the feminized, national party, at least) are going to be more resolute than Republicans against foreign enemies, much less caliphanatics. Dubya has simply assured average, undecided voters that he can be trusted in the GWOT, despite all the nasty things ambitious Democrat candidates are saying.