[mrbowler]

Originally Posted by FUNdamental

President Bush said he was "horrified" by the 32 violent deaths at Virginia Tech. Since the American killed toll this month alone in Iraq is in the 80's, and we have no emotional comment from him, I suppose he feels he can live comfortably with that tally.

I guess you can look at it a couple of ways..either President Bush really believes that staying the course will eventually lead to a more stable government, adequate trained troops, police etc. etc. Or is in denial in which no matter how long American troops stay it is just delaying the inevitable withdrawl, pullout, redeployment(pick your word)-in which you will find out one way or another if the iraqi people are more interested in working together to prevent further violence or they are more interested in ethnic violence. IMO President Bush is stuck in a position in which as you say he is willing to accept the losses-I'm not sure I would use the word comfortable, but either out of strength(republican) or denial(democrat). The next president will eventually decide a different course in which it provides a fallback for President Bush-since if it goes bad he can say "We should of never done xyz"
He is basically just running the clock out IMO-if the democrats try/do cut funding the usual "defeatists" mantra will continue to be rolled out, and the "democrats are weak on defense".