Bush, The Times and the War

The editorial in Sunday's New York Times is not exactly like when Walter Cronkite concluded after the '68 Tet offensive that the Vietnam War was not winnable and that it was time to bring American troops home from there. "If I've lost Walter Cronkite, I've lost Middle America," President Lyndon Johnson is famously reported to have said in response.

The Times has long been critical of the Iraq war. Even key Republican congressmen are already turning against George Bush's war policies. This wasn't an editorial in the Wall Street Journal, or on Fox News.

But the panic that is reportedly gripping the White House these days over the failures in Iraq wasn't given much comfort by the take-no-prisoners editorial in America's leading newspaper, which declared: "It is time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit."

Whether you agree or disagree with The Times, it is a powerful argument that reflects a strong sentiment in the United States.

--By Scott MacLeod/Cairo