Spin it as you please -- this is a mess

By Joseph Galloway

Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - The spinmeisters are having a field day.

President Bush journeyed to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., to declare before a safe audience that he will never cut and run in Iraq. He's staying the course, and that's that.

Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld chimed in to warn that any withdrawal from Iraq short of victory would lead to radicals taking power throughout the Islamic world. Vice President Dick Cheney traveled to Fort Drum in upstate New York to stand before the usual photo-op backdrop of soldiers in desert uniforms and add Spain to Osama bin Laden's Islamic empire.