Changing the rules, moving the goal posts, rewording the memo

Using a new definition of success...

WASHINGTON: With the Democratic-led Congress poised to measure progress in Iraq by focusing on the central government's failure to perform, President George W. Bush is proposing a new gauge, by focusing on new U.S. alliances with the tribes and local groups that Washington once feared would tear the country apart.

That shift in emphasis was implicit in Bush's decision to bypass Baghdad on his eight-hour trip to Iraq this week, stopping instead in Anbar Province, once the heart of an anti-American Sunni insurgency. By meeting with tribal leaders who just a year ago were considered the enemy, and who now are fighting Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a president who has unveiled four or five strategies for winning over Iraqis - depending on how one counts - may now be on the cusp of yet another.

It is not clear whether the Democrats who control Congress will be in any mood to accept the changing measures. On Tuesday, there were contentious hearings over a Government Accountability Office report that, like last month's National Intelligence Estimate, painted a bleak picture of Iraq's future.

Remember this:

"...Gail Sheehy wrote an article for the {Vanity Fair} magazine about W. that made this point: “Even if he loses, his friends say, he doesn’t lose. He’ll just change the score, or change the rules, or make his opponent play until he can beat him.”"