contrapositive

SULLIVAN AGREES The idea of some sort of presidential statement is gaining traction. Here's Andrew Sullivan:

It seems to me that some kind of reckoning has to be made by the president himself. No one below him can have the impact of a presidential statement of apology to the Iraqi and American people. Bush should give one. He should show true responsibility and remorse, which I have no doubt he feels...But frankly there is something tawdry about a president at a time like this campaigning in the Midwest in a bus. His entire war's rationale has been called into question. The integrity of the United States has been indelibly harmed on his watch. He must account for it. Soon.

UPDATE: And here's Mickey Kaus:

Does President Bush--as opposed to his State Department--understand the extent to which the photos of Iraqi prisoner abuse have made America palpably less safe by encouraging some non-trivial number angry Muslims (and others) to become anti-U.S. terrorists? The real events themselves are bad enough; magnified by the highly efficient Arab anti-American propaganda machine they become a huge defeat in the war on terror. It won't be much of an answer, when another attack kills thousands of Americans, to protest "But there were only a handful of bad apples in Iraq." The President's job isn't just to be able to defend the U.S. position. It's to prevent the attacks.

How? The abuse scandal isn't the sort of bad publicity that will be countered by a sound bite here or there...It's not a responsibility President Bush should delegate--to distance himself from the bad news...Some grand gesture would seem to be required. Why doesn't President Bush ask for three minutes on the U.S. networks, plus CNN and Al Jazeera and the other international satellite channels. He could look directly into the camera; and a) condemn and apologize; b) explain why this isn't what America is about; c) give his personal pledge to punish the perpetrators, describing those Americans already punished; and d) ask to be judged on the results. Keep the righteousness and self-congratulation about how Saddam wouldn't have taken corrective action to a minimum, and he might begin to turn this defeat around. (Emphasis in original.)