Newsweek's
Richard Wolffe on last night's presidential hoohah:
In years to come, historians will wonder why this Bush administration enjoyed such a strong reputation for its foreign policy for so long. After all, it was only a few weeks ago that Washington's pundit class, spurred on by the rival presidential campaigns, declared that George W. Bush was a shoo-in as long as the focus remained on Iraq.
How times have changed. The president's grand vision for Iraq - now known as his five-point plan - was supposed to get the full ballyhoo on Monday evening. The magical words "prime-time" were thrown around, even though the networks chose to broadcast shows like Fear Factor instead of the president's fine words. But no amount of rhetorical flourish can mask the disarray of the administration's policy in Iraq, and the president's continuing struggle to speak convincingly to the American and Iraqi people.
