No Options.

"Failure is not an option" implies that we have a choice in the matter, GW, and repeating your mantra is not going to do a whole lot to change that fact. Bush has been backpedaling on the issue for years now, and the American people finally spoke their mind in November. They're tired of your auditory retreat before the press; they want an actual retreat, with real troops. Harry Reid has said that he is in a bubble, that none of the Republicans around him want to get close, to risk being tainted by the possibly career-ending, taint that is upon his entire administration and presidency at this point.

I guess that bubble is tinted as well as tainted.

Either Bush is either blind to the damage his strategy is causing his allies and party, or he is simply too tenacious to let go. Blindness is never admirable in a president; Bush was elected because he had a vision for the country. Tenacity is usually a positive trait, though that can be changed when that tenacity leads to thousands of deaths. Either way, we should have seen the problems this could cause when Bush told the country that he believed being reelected gave him free rein on the war in Iraq. It's too bad that he doesn't see that that is exactly what happened when the Democrats were put in control of Congress this year.