In tonight's nationally televised address President Bush will announce plans to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq, a decision predicated on his admission of prior mishandling. Whether or not these numbers constitute a surge, White House counselor Dan Bartlett assures us that Iraqi troops (not ours) "are going to be the ones doing the knocking on the door." By that he's surely talking about the proverbial door--or perhaps some vaguer metaphorical door of slightly lesser significance. Not to be outdone, Democrats have vowed to discuss a "symbolic measure" of opposition to the increase. We should note, however, that should the increase happen, the troops deployed will not be metaphorical, proverbial, symbolic, illusory, archetypal, allegorical, representational, figurative, or otherwise abstract. They'll just be troops.
Side note, Bartlett's language could be seen as a paltry attempt to secure a place in a future edition of the familiar quotation book of his namesake. No word from the publisher as of today.
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