“We have a strategy for victory.” This is what Bush said yesterday in preparation for a much-hyped speech he’s giving today at the U.S. Naval Academy. Here’s what’s clear: this speech is at once a p.r. ploy–they have to say something to blunt the Joe Murtha-inspired calls for quick withdrawal–and also an amazing continuation of an unwillingness to admit the war was a complete fiasco and disaster.

I suppose, for some people, articulating a “strategy for victory” is one step forward from “Mission Accomplished.” But, it is the same mindset that will not face reality: there can be no strategy for victory. U.S. military force will not be able to put back together a country we broke.

It’s worth reading this week’s The New Yorker article by Seymour Hersh, who reveals an Administration plan to replace boots-on-the-ground with air power. Don’t these folks learn anything? The U.S. had an overwhelming technological advantage over North Vietnam, with air power being seen as the crown jewel of that advantage. And it failed. You cannot bomb a irregular army into submission from the air. And the strategy seems scarily similar to the failed Vietnam strategy: rely on the poorly-trained Iraqi military to take over the war supported by air power.

The problem is that the Democrats seem incapable of articulating the Joe Murtha solution: immediate withdrawal from Iraq. Hillary Clinton just sent out a letter to New Yorkers (I’m not on her list–not deep-pocketed enough I guess; it was forwarded to me), in which she both justifies her vote for the war and tries to cut out a little piece of space for herself on the question of withdrawal, without saying much.

For all intents and purposes, on the question of getting our troops immediately, she has a position not dissimilar from the other pro-war politicians–and not too far from the Administration, truly. She says withdrawal should begin in 2006–but this is a declaration with no end it sight. And it also calls for the Administration to lay out a strategy for winning the war–a completely implausible path given the realities in Iraq. It is vintage stuff from our New York senator: try to placate her furious constituents without changing her pro-war position. More on that in the coming days.