The Washington Post reports:

As pressure mounts for a change of course in Iraq, the Bush administration is groping for a viable new strategy for the president to unveil by Christmas, with deliberations now focused on three main options to redefine the U.S. military and political engagement, according to officials familiar with the debate.

Dictionary.com says that one definition of ‘grope’ is “to touch or handle (someone) for sexual pleasure.” I’ll assume that’s not what the WaPo meant since this is not about the Clinton Administration. So they must have meant “to search blindly or uncertainly.” While this might be true it is just their opinion and shouldn’t be in a news article. I doubt that the “officials familiar with the debate” said they are groping in the dark. I suspect that if the article was about a Democrat they would have been simply searching for a viable new strategy or perhaps defining a viable new strategy.

The results of the Administration’s groping according to the WaPo:

The major alternatives include a short-term surge of 15,000 to 30,000 additional U.S. troops to secure Baghdad and accelerate the training of Iraqi forces. Another strategy would redirect the U.S. military away from the internal strife to focus mainly on hunting terrorists affiliated with al-Qaeda. And the third would concentrate political attention on supporting the majority Shiites and abandon U.S. efforts to reach out to Sunni insurgents.

*At least I think this was a front page story. I got it from their web site but it states that the article is from page A01.