Pres. Bush Vs. Rumsfeld Vs. The Generals: Chaos In Control of The White House

Is Karl Rove distracted or something? The Bush White House is in serious disarray. First, Bush and Rummy seemed to spar over what to call this titanic struggle we're apparently engaged in. Rummy rebranded it as the "global struggle against violent extremism." Bush slapped that down by referring to the "war on terror" at least 57 times when he spoke publicly soon after. (The Weekly Standard and other Bush cheerleaders used that as another excuse to call for Rummy's head.)

Now it's Bush vs the generals. He seemed to be floating a trial balloon via our generals by having them talk about pulling back some troops in the spring, now that everything is going so swimmingly in Iraq. Either that mid-term election ploy was too naked or the obvious fact that Bush had suddenly named the deadline he insisted was dangerous finally sunk in. Whatever the reason, now Bush is saying hold on, we can't be talking about pulling out troops and undermining the war effort. Bush referred to the statements by his top generals as "rumours" and "speculation." The Washington Post called the confusion a case of "seemingly mixed signals" and suggested Bush's people were no clearer than anyone else about what should be happening or when.

Either the Bush White House is having trouble keeping people on message or there is a real struggle over the direction they should be heading in and that fight is sowing disarray in the Administration. But with Rove preoccupied, the only ting certain is that chaos is in control in the White House.