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He gambled on being able to campaign -- pretending the war in Iraq was going well, that it was connected to the war on terror and that Iraq had a hand in 9/11.
After all, let's all acknowledge that while at an Alice in Wonderland tea party, Shrub and his people actively decided the campaign position would be: Iraq is going well, Iraq was connected to the war on terror and that Iraq had a hand in 9/11 (despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary).
It was a calculated gamble. The escalating violence, the recently leaked National Intelligence Estimate show us he has lost that gamble.
Where are the musings and analysis from campaign pundits pondering Bush's big gamble? How he was wrong? That this position was a calcalated one? We have already seen a flurry of articles about hey, wait a minute -- Shrub is mistating Kerry's position, then there is today's MSNBC article - Shrub mistated # of trained Iraq troops (he said 100,000, it is 8,100). It should be inevitable that we will see people talking about conversations with senior Bush campaign officials off the record about the calculated risk Shrub took to say Iraq was going well when it is now publicly clear that it is a mess.
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