That is probably the best way to describe Bush's speech last night. Yes, Bush was at his most sincere and honest, trying to connect with both American and Iraqi people in order to come clean about past failures and get some buy-in for this last ditch effort. The best illustration was probably the disavowal of the ”Mission Accomplished” ceremony by stating that “there will be no surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship”. But strained too. The failures in Iraq have put the president well beyond the boundaries of his comfort zone and it showed, painfully.

The question is why this act of penance combined with a new plan arrived this late in the game. And, given the timing we are now looking at, a fairly risky strategy based largely on only a marginally bankable Iraqi government. And while Rudy Giuliani threw in his support for the plan I can remember that only a few months ago the former mayor pointed to an ‘accountable government’ as one of the primary objectives in Iraq. As things stand the best we can hope for is that the current Iraqi government will at least show a measure of accountability to the US. Domestic responsibility has long ago disappeared as an objective for the wavering al-Maliki, if it ever existed.

Still, there is no currency in taking an overly confrontational approach by trying to take Bush down over his latest and probably final effort to make things work. Rhetoric is the provenance of an election campaign and it would be fitting for the Democratic majority in congress to line up behind the plan and make it work. Joe Lieberman has indicated where he stands and got kudos for that in this speech.

It would be preferable to send in more troops and resources, but balancing the political and physical constraints leave little room for the massive build-up that some argue would be required. It should be emphasized that the counterpoints such as ‘enough is enough’ or ‘withdraw and pray for a miracle’ can not at any time be considered as realistic and viable policy options, they are mere emotions. There is too much at stake and too much invested at this stage to let the entire project slip and create a legacy with far graver consequences than Vietnam ever had.

Let’s make a stock market analogy. If you have invested in a significant number of shares of one company and have been pummeled by a brutal market, does it make sense to buy a small portion of the same stock with the expectation to wipe out all of your losses and turn an eventual, profit? And in the interim yield some dividends? Only if you believe in the underlying value of that stock. Dump it and be damned, hold on and expect a bumpy ride.