From Holden:
Poor Little Scottie, once again he has to clean up after the boss.
Earlier in the day, in an interview on NBC-TV’s “Today” show that was broadcast to coincide with the start of the Republican National Convention in New York, Bush was asked “Can we win?” the war on terror.
“I don’t think you can win it,” he responded. “But I think you can create conditions so that those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world.”
Uh-oh, Scottie, time to back-pedal:
Q Do you want to expand at all on the President’s comments this morning on the “Today Show,” about the war on terror?
MR. McCLELLAN: What about them?
Q He said — I’m paraphrasing here — he said that it, specifically, could not be won, but you could make conditions safer for Americans.
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, he was talking about winning it in the conventional sense. That’s what he was talking about. I mean, this — you’ve often heard him talk about how this is a different kind of war. We face an unconventional enemy. And it’s — I don’t think you can expect that there will ever be a formal surrender or a treaty signed, like we have in wars past. That’s what he was talking about, when he was talking about that. It requires a generational commitment to win this war on terrorism. I think you heard him talk about his two-prong strategy, that we must continue to stay on the offensive and bring the terrorists to justice before they harm us. We also must work to advance freedom to defeat the ideologies of hatred and tyranny. So that’s what he was talking about. You can’t put a time frame on it, per se.