Editorial: Spin won’t fool the public

Wednesday, July 11, 2007 | 7:03 a.m.

T he first of two status reports on Iraq, required by war-funding legislation that Congress approved in May, is due Sunday but is already leaking out.

Quoting senior administration and military sources, news organizations reported Tuesday that the report will be bleak.

In announcing his escalation of the war in January, President Bush set several security and political goals for Iraq. It is unlikely the report will say any of them have been met, The Washington Post reported.

A majority of congressional Democrats and a growing number of Republicans are demanding that Bush come to terms with the reality that a reduction in U.S. forces and stepped-up diplomacy in the region are the only way forward.

But as he has in the past whenever pressured to change strategy, Bush is putting his spin into overdrive. Anticipating the report, he is once again talking about some undefined point in the future when his war will be "won."

Americans aren't so gullible anymore, however. In the latest USA Today/Gallup Poll, his approval rating was just 29 percent, one of the lowest ever recorded by a president.