Bond Critizes The President, Sticks With the Surge

EDIT 8:51 p.m.
This is an amended post after some confusion around what Sen. Kit Bond said about Iraq today.
As soon as I ventured into the newsroom today, I was encircled by producers telling me that the Sen. Bond had broken with the President on Iraq.

They referred to an A.P. story:

Yesterday Bond said the White House has pursued the wrong policy in Iraq for years. He says the U-S should have adopted a counterinsurgency strategy, and blamed Bush for the error.

“The strategy we had before was not the right strategy,” Bond, one of the president’s staunchest supporters, told the Associated Press. “We should have had a counterinsurgency strategy.”

When asked who bore responsibility for promoting the “wrong policy,” the Missouri Republican replied: “Ultimately, obviously, the president.”

I was also told a television feed was coming down with Bond's speech on the subject. But as I watched the speech, it occurred to me that Bond was not breaking with the President's policy -- and therefore I had the wrong headline on this blog post.

I was wrong to just go what was being told to me by some of my colleagues without listening to the entire Iraq speech first. I then spoke with Bond's spokesperson Shana Marshio to clarify what Bond was saying.

Bottom line: Bond was criticizing the President's previous strategy; but emphasizing his continued support for the surge.

Marshio told me "there was nothing really new here." She said Bond made the statements about the President's mistakes in an interview -- and after a press conference reiterating his support for the current policy.

"It's not really new," Marshio said.

That explanation paled in comparison to the frenzy in the newsroom -- caused by a rip and read of an A.P. story without going any deeper.

On the floor today, Bond spoke against several Democratic amendments designed to stage a withdrawal from Iraq. He criticized the Senate for debating "timelines." He said the surge was working and said this "political debate" has sidetracked our country's national security.

"Sen. Bond did criticize the post invasion strategy, for reasons he has noted before," Marshio explained. "But the new strategy takes care of many of those problems. And his statements do not detract from his consistent support for the war," she added.