THE WHITE HOUSE has released its Iraq strategy document. I think it owes a bit of a debt to Steven Den Beste. But hey, you can’t always rely on bloggers to explain the war plan.

UPDATE: Some people are asking what’s new about this strategy. The answer — as Jon Henke notes — is nothing, really. (“Naturally—after having paid more attention to the critics claiming there’s no plan than to, you know, the actual plan—everybody is acting all surprised and confused. . . .This isn’t the ‘first time’ the White House has disclosed the strategy for victory in Iraq, and the strategy isn’t ‘new’. This is something reporters really should know. . . . Granted, the White House should have done a better job at spreading this message from the very start. But it’s sheer laziness and/or incompetence on the part of the media and critics to pretend that the Iraq strategy hasn’t been widely available for a long time.”)

What’s new is that the White House is forcing people to pay attention to the plan, and to the fact that there is, and has been, a plan even though the press has ignored it. That many media outfits, as Henke notes, seem to think this is all new is merely evidence that they’ve been providing lousy war coverage all along.

But the White House, if a bit late in the day, is doing something it needs to do. You can’t rely on bloggers to do it all.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Brian Dunn emails:

Nothing new for those who pay attention.

Perhaps the White House should have slapped a yellow cover on it and called it “Iraq Strategy for Dummies.” They could make quite a series what with the confusion over intelligence, WMD, Al Qaeda, the word “imminent”, etc.

Heh. More on Bush’s speech, including video, here.