Aren't we getting pretty near the fit to serve threshold with our Dear Leader? Seriously, how long can it be before he's muttering to the portraits and hurling things at the one of the man bookended by Bushes? Just consider a couple of the events of the last week to illustrate the disfunction and denial.
For starters, there is the vanishing Baker Commission report. It's down the memory hole as if it never existed. It's as if once it became apparent that the report wasn't going to achieve the unstated goal of shifting ownership of at least part of the mess in Iraq to the Democrats, the report fell of the radar so fast it had sound effects.
"I think he has been trapped by his own rhetoric," Panetta said in a telephone interview from his California office. Referring to a recent poll suggesting that 70 percent of those surveyed disapprove of Bush's handling of the war, Panetta said, "His ratings are so low now that he has got to do something to pull this country together."Today there was the farce at the Pentagon surrounding the Rumsfeld departure. And what was up with the farewell tour? Why did he even need to go to Iraq? He did such a lousy job as SecDef that the Decider, the most incompetent Schmendrik on the face of the Earth, fired him. I know how unpopular Rummy is/was with the troops. Believe me, he is the last sonuvabitch the troops in the field wanted to have grace them with his presence one last time.
But here is my favorite bit...We had an election less than six weeks ago that issued a stinging rebuke to the Decider and his handlers, especially on the Iraq issue. But George has already forgotten that election, aparently. Let me illustrate: Even thought we knew in 1999 that an invading force of 400,000 troops would have trouble securing a post-Saddam Iraq. Instead of heeding the warnings of Desert Crossing the invasion was undertaken with less than half of the troops that would have been necessary. Now, with the whole mess falling apart like a high-school drama queen, the president is considering sending in approximately 20,000 additional troops in an attempt to stabilize Baghdad. This would bring total forces to about 160,000 and the forces in Baghdad to just under 40,000. Here's the kicker: Generals Casey and Abizaid aren't asking for more troops. They actually are not convinced more troops is a good idea. So much for listenning to your Generals, eh Decider?
Then there is the inconvenient reality that the Iraqi's not only don't want more American troops, they want less, and they want a troop reduction by American and coallition forces in the city of Baghdad.
(The potential upside to all this troop build-up sound and fury? A stake through the political heart of one John McCain.)
Again this week, the President was out there, insisting in spite of all evidence to the contrary that progress is being made. Laura, his last true-believer supporter, was even on one of the morning chat-shows Friday morning blaming the liberal media™©® for her husbands woes, and blathering on about how the good news is not being reported and the violence is being overstated. (The Iraq Study Group actually found that the violence was underreported.)
I have high def, and she definitely had a visible Kool-Aid moustache.
