Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/analysts-discuss-growing-republican-voices-against-war-in-iraq Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Analysts Mark Shields and Ramesh Ponnuru discuss political stories of the week, including comments made by two prominent Republicans criticizing the Bush administration on its handling of the war in Iraq. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. RAY SUAREZ: Now, to the analysis of Shields and Ponnuru, syndicated columnist Mark Shields and National Review senior editor Ramesh Ponnuru. David Brooks is off tonight.Ramesh, at the beginning of the week, the president had a news conference, and the talking point seems to have shifted from, "We're making progress," to, "It could be worse." RAMESH PONNURU, National Review Senior Editor: Yes, that's right. I think that the administration has belatedly moved away from a "stay the course" message, several months after it probably should have, for its own political health. And I think those months have taken a real toll on the administration's credibility.There have been too many corners allegedly turned, too many attempts by the administration to say, "Don't believe what you're seeing on TV, we're actually making a lot of progress." I think this is a more successful tact the administration is taking; it may be a little late in the game. RAY SUAREZ: But is it also risky to, after having one basic message about the war for a long time, to just come up with a new one without making any remark about it, not saying, "We used to say this, and now we're saying that," but just say this new thing and sort of just go with it? RAMESH PONNURU: Well, it's a little bit more of a transition since, you know, he's always said that we are adapting our tactics to meet the circumstances of the moment. And, you know, he's still saying we have a strategy in place for dealing with this threat, so it's not a total 180-degree shift. RAY SUAREZ: Mark? MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated Columnist: No longer is it the press's fault. That's good to hear. I mean, we were told that there was a lot of good news, it was just going unreported. Things were getting better, except those nervous Nellies and negativists in the press failed to report it.Now the president, you know, as you put it, has frankly confronted — I agree with Ramesh that the president is in a little bit of a problem. He faced a serious problem, and I think the damage may already have been inflicted, Ray, and that was he could look delusional or deceitful and not credible. And that was the problem that they had politically going into the fall of 2006.