Bush Launches New White House “Resolution” Group; Targeting Jan. 1 To Begin Changes
Plans Own 100-Hours; From Dealing With Iraq Jar, To Losing Weight, Says “New Strategies Will Come From Me”
Sources close to the President have told The Garlic, that the White House is “in a frenzy” as President Bush has personally set up a new study group, with a two-week time line, to compile a list of “resolutions” the President should consider for the new year.
The White House Resolution Group is spearhead by Chief of Staff Josh Bolten, and has a widely diverse membership, pulling from the White House Iraq Group, the White House Iraq and Iran Group, trusted confidants outside the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney.
Cheney’s role in the Resolution Group will be limited to an advisory role, as the Vice President is pressed for time heading his own Iran Study Group.
Former Iraq Study Group chiefs James Baker, Lee Hamilton, as well as any other members of the group, will not be brought in and will not be solicited for any potential resolutions that President can make.
The WHRG is to submit their final list of recommended resolutions to the President by December 30th, while the President works to compile his own list. The target of December 31st is circled for the President to take his own list, merge it with the WHRG’s list and come up with what will be his own New Years’ resolutions that will embrace both personal goals, as well as what his new plans for Iraq will be.
Pushing Back Iraq Solution Unrelated To New Resolutions
President Bush was to address the nation with his new Iraq plans before Christmas, but on Wednesday, the White House announced he was delaying the speech until the New Year.
White House Press Secretary Tony Snow said, before banging his head on the podium, he didn’t know if the announcement of the delay had anything to do with the new Resolution Group and, when pressed by reporters, indicated that “I’d recommend that President make a resolution, like I have, to apologize to NBC’s David Gregory.”
“I think,” added Snow, “that what we have here is a man, just like millions of other people around the country, that is going to, you know, make some resolutions for the New Year ... To be a better person ... And he’s doing, just like other people, both personal and professional resolutions ... He’s the Commander-in-Chief and some of those professional resolutions will be about policy and what’s best for the country ... “
Bush Resolutions To Be ‘I-Told-You-So” Proof
The White House is denying that the new Resolution Group is part of the plan to get their “mojo back” or that using resolutions are to be a rebuttal to the ISG Report.
The timing of the WHRG is extremely coincidental to the release of the report, in which the President seemingly blew it off, vowing to come up with “a new strategy for Iraq” saying "The American people expect us to come up with a new strategy to achieve the objective which I've been talking about."
“This is all the President’s.” said an aide in the White House. “The planning for the Resolution Group predated the release of the ISG ... The President wanted a plan, something, that was his own, and not be subject to a bunch of I-Told-You-So’s ...”
President Bush hasn’t ruled out at least two of the ISG’s recommendations, that that he reinvade Iraq or that he launch a reality show to come up with a new solution.
100 Hours and The Iraq Jar
Sources have indicated that the goal is to come up with 100-hours of resolutions, which can be measured and tracked for progress and effectiveness.
This includes ordinary resolutions of losing weight, and increasing his "Ek-A-Lec-Tic" Reading List to, at least, four Shakespeares” to laying out a new strategy to deal with the crises in Iraq. There will be no plans or resolution to begin defining what’s going on in Iraq as a “Civil War”.
The President will resolve, according to Hugh P. Varicator, a consultant with the conservative hawkish think tank, “Cry Wolf”, that is said to be closely affiliated with The Project for the New American Century (PNAC), and, some say, may be an adjunct to the White House Iraq Group, or WHIG, to begin whittling away at the Iraq Jar.
“He as to start dealing with that,” said Varicator. “The thing is overflowing with ideas and suggestions and who knows, there just might be a plan in there that can save his presidency, his legacy.”
The White House is bristling at the suggestion the President’s 100-Hours of Resolutions is designed to overshadow the planned 100-Hours of the 110th Congress, in which Speaker-Elect Nancy Pelosi says she will “drain the GOP swamp.”
“It is nothing of the sort,” said one aide. “It’s a matter of New Years’ Resolutions and you, if my memory is correct, begin or launch those at the beginning of the New Year ... They [Congress] have their plans, we have ours ...”
Outgoing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who was not invited to join the White House Resolution Group, weighed in on the matter.
“Gosh Golly ... Resolutions?... My goodness, what the heck do you think we’ve been doing for the last three years? ... We’ve being going with the resolutions that we had, not the resolutions we wish we had at a later time.”
The First Lady will be happy to hear that the new White House Resolution Group will see that the President deals with the overflowing Iraq Jar that sits in his office
