Winning = Wanting

Not that George Bush has many new lines these days, but sometimes the context highlights the old ones. Hence what is perhaps the most alarming claim from his news conference with Tony Blair -- that winning in Iraq is just a matter of sufficiently wanting to win, and therefore that having wanted to win, his job is done and it gets dumped onto the next President -- who also just has to want to win:

I like to remind people it's akin to the Cold War, in many ways. There's an ideological clash going on. And the question is: Will we have the resolve and the confidence in liberty to prevail?

That's really the fundamental question facing -- it's not going to face this government or this government, because we made up our mind. We've made that part clear.

But it'll face future governments. There will be future opportunities for people to say, "Well, it's not worth it. Let's just retreat." I would strongly advise a government not to accept that position because of the dangers inherent with isolationism and retreat.

UPDATE: A couple of entries for most bizarre utterance:

I appreciate the Prime Minister's answer to this lad -- we call them lads, in Great Britain -- lad's question, is that --(laughter.)

PRIME MINISTER BLAIR: You've made a friend, I think, there. (Laughter.) It's a long time since anyone's called him that. (Laughter.)

which seemed to be a reference to Nic Robertson Nick Robinson, who had earlier triggered this bit of petulance --

Q Mr. President, the Iraq Study Group described the situation in Iraq as grave and deteriorating. You said that the increase in attacks is unsettling. That won't convince many people that you're still in denial about how bad things are in Iraq, and question your sincerity about changing course.

PRESIDENT BUSH: It's bad in Iraq. Does that help? (Laughter.)

Also -- We've got special operators, we've got better intelligence