Sunday Morning Comin’ Down

Understanding Iraq.

One thing the pundits pointedly miss over and over again is this simple truth:

“Iraq = Dubya”

It is not just his legacy. Not just the major issue of 2008. Not just the gamble on which he has recklessly staked every ounce of blood, cent of treasure and scrap of reputation we have carefully husbanded over 200 years.

All of that is correct but insufficient.

Iraq Is Dubya.

It is a direct manifestation of the sodden witchbag of Fundy simplemindedness, undeserved power and boundless incompetence that constitutes his psyche. It is an extrusion into the real and bloody world of this Ultimate Trust Fund Simpleton presidency: a man-child of staggering ineptitude, flanked his entire life by flunkies and yes-men, and shielded from the consequences of his horrendous judgment by Daddy’s Money and Daddy’s Friends.

And in his sociopathic detachment from real reality, the Neocons found their Useful Idiot.

A fop and a failure that has spent his entire life muddling cause and effect. Who has now come to believe he is the Brilliantest Preznit Evah! A flippin’ Infallible Genius because for his entire life he has been permitted to conflate "Success" with "Being pried out of his every failure and catastrophe by valets and toadies and never held to account for a damned thing".

The military doesn’t matter to Dubya any more than it does to the chickenhawk Right: They “volunteered” for dangerous public service, which makes them “little people” by GOP standards; foolish and disposable bit-players in the Glorious Conservative Revolution.

Any tears shed for this war at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue are the self-pitying kind. Those of a stone alky, weeping and terrified that he will, once and for all, be exiled off from his bottle.

Iraq will never have hard benchmarks because Dubya’s Beautiful Mind would implode if someone forced him to live up to a fraction of the standards he and his Party so cavalierly demand of everyone else.

Iraq will never have timelines because being held to account based on some objective measure of progress is what Dubya has spent his entire life avoiding.

Like Arbusto Energy, we will never leave Iraq as long as there are reserves of other people’s money to throw down Dubya’s rat-hole. Unlike Arbusto, this time the Crawford Dauphin is shooting drunken craps with the actual lives of real people and the fate of the entire world.

As long as he is allowed to hide behind the perverse idolatry of the Wahabi Right’s Fake Jesus, and the reanimated corpse of McCarthyite Fake Patriotism, we ain’t budging.

And as long as we ain’t budging, the only question worth asking – worth pounding home day after day after day after day a hundred different ways until the Bush Crime Family is driven from power – is this:

Do you stand with the degenerate freaks that installed and kept these monsters in office, or do you stand against them?

In other words, are you a Good American or are you a Good Republican?


On Fox News Sunday… Gen. David Petraeus

Iraq is hard.

Really hard.

Really, really hard.



Also this Sunday in virtually every ring on the Mouse Circus we hear a new word. "Respite": A magical non-pardon pardon that would let Libby skate on serving any jail should Dubya want to split the difference.



On Face the Nation…Would whoever played “Got Your Chin” with Mitch McConnell please return it?

He has finally become more Gogol short story than man, and it is creeping me out.


McConnell: We have been disappointed with the Iraqi government. But we’ll wait until September.

McConnell: The Surge is now complete. The Iraqis will have to step-up. We can’t be there forever.

Petraeus may ask for more troops. A lot more. Like a zillion. What then?

McConnell: Well I know that we were all full of “We will reshape Reality!” And “We won. You lost. Get over it!” hoo-ha for the last, oh, six years or so, but now it’s three a.m. at the GOP Kit Kat Lounge.

The floor is covered in peanut shells, blood, IOUs and Neocon vomit.

Ann Coulter is out back giving away hummers to truck drivers who promise to at least think about buying remaindered copies of her books. And you know what?

We suddenly likey the Iraq Study Group.

We likey-likey.

But didn’t the ISG also call for a draw down? That hated cutty-runny thingie that you Conservatives have told us all for years would ruin what remains of our precious bodily fluids?

McConnell: Ummmmmmm. We will wait and see. Might have to re-deploy. Forwardly deployed.

driftglass: Sorta like exactly what that notorious traitor John Murtha called for two years ago.

McConnell: We are very disappointed in the Iraqi government. We gave them their Big Shot at being Murricans and they appear to be blowing it.

OK, but then what happens? How do you respond?

McConnell: I’m not going to answer hypothetical. But we likey the Iraq Study Group. We likey-likey.

On Immigration: No Amnesty! No Chain Migration! Fight the power! Down with the Man! Up the British!

Then comes Lee Hamilton, of “Baker/Hamilton” fame and the ISG that McConnell likes so much.

Because suddenly everyone is interested in the ISG.

Hamilton: Let me remind everyone that the primary recommendation of the ISG was on training the Iraqi troops. Not a “Surge”.

Hamilton: We also said you have to solve this bitch diplomatically, economically, etc.

Hamilton: Lastly, the neighboring states have to be brought in.

Iraq, short and dirty:

The Kurds want out.
The Sunnis want back in.
The Shia want to hang on to what they now have like grim death.

Hamilton: There is no sense of inclusiveness. It his hugely disappointing and I think we have to get much tougher.

Hamilton: I look back at what is going on now, what is being suggest now, and ask “Why wasn’t this done a year ago? Six months ago?”

driftglass: Because there was a Republican Congress six months ago and a year ago. And because the Republican Party has been perfectly content to be Dubya’s gilded ottoman for the last six years.

In fact they built the last three election cycles explicitly on the principle that any dissent from the Omniscient Genius of the Dear Leader was tantamount to treason. That entertaining even the tiniest thoughts that Dubya might be even a liiiitle bit wrong gave aid and comfort to the enemy.

But because a Republican will always put Party ahead of Country, they conspicuously failed to notice what a clusterfuck their Party and their President have made out of the world...

...until his poll numbers starting hovering in the 20s and 30s month after month after month.

Now one after another they are all coming down with Sudden Adult Onset "Dubya Who?"-ism and demand to know just who in the Hell let this crazy person run the country!

Hamilton: Iraq is a whole history of setting benchmarks and milestones, the Iraqi government blowing past them, and us doing nothing.

driftglass: Again because Iraq makes absolutely no sense whatsoever unless you realize that, from border to border, it is has become a manifestation of the boozy, cancerous “Nobody puts Baby in a corner!” subconscious of George W. Bush.

Face the Nation: Schieffer says the obligatory Sunday Morning Pundits’s prayer while facing Media Mecca:

“It’s everybody’s fault.”

Schieffer: If both parties are forced to shift their hunt for votes to the Center…

What Center?

You mean towards that Great Wad of Americans who can’t be bothered to read a newspaper, read a book, or even watch any teevee more challenging than “Poo Flinger Island” and “Smell my Fat Spouse”?

Can’t be bothered to peel their massive asses off the sofa to vote?

You mean those Americans?

Longer/shorter Schieffer: It’s “Washington” that has failed. The two Parties are both equally Base-driven. The Extreme Liberal Base holds the Dems hostage!

You dissapoint me, Schieffer


On This Week Joe Biden’s hair and giant, bleached choppers fill me with fear.

Joe Biden: I trust General Petraeus. He’ll give us the straight poop.

On Hamas: I don’t want to Monday QB, but years back me and Dicky Lugar we wrote the Preznit about what we should do. He punked out like he always does, things fell apart, and here we are.

On Iran: They’re everywhere you want to be. Iran is waging war with us like the USSR wager war with us. By surrogate.

But what about your dear friend Joementum? And his plan for Holy Joehad against imaginary bases in Iran?

Biden: Morally there would be nothing wrong with attacking camps in Iran if they are training soldiers to kill our people.

Practically, however, if Joementum can explain exactly how we could attack Iran and not unify them when we can’t even keep the much smaller, weak Iraq from melting down…?

How he would attack Iran without uniting them behind their loony President...?

If Joementum has anything to offer beyond his usual bullshit chickenhawk platitudes, I’m all ears.

And hair.

And scary teeth.

Biden: The problem with this Administration is it conflates terrorism with...everything. There will be terrorism whether or not we’re stuck in the Iraqi civil war, and there will be an Iraqi civil war regardless of what happens in the war on Terrorism. They are not the same thing.

Biden: We are marginally safer than six years ago but not nearly enough. We are making more terrorists. This Administration has been criminally negligent.

Biden: I am more qualified to be Commander in Chief than Hillary. Not that she’s a bad person, but the next Preznit will have no margin for error.

Lindsay Graham then says some stuff.

Then comes the Panel…

David Corn: The Bush Administration really believed that speechifying about Palestinian situation was a substitute for the hard work of diplomatic.

Martha Radditz: The amazing thing is that the Iraqi Government keeps coming up with more lame-ass excuses. I boggles my fucking mind!

Corn: What are American soldiers dying for if the Iraqi Government isn’t serious about solving their own problems?

Corn: We have been talking about a “turnaround” for the last three years.

Then some talk about Rove and Subpoenas.

And then Libby and Pardons…

Corn: A handful of Rightwing freaks are really beating this shit out of Dubya.

Radditz: And Cheney bought a Giant Inflatable Rat and has set it up outside Dubya’s window in the White House Lawn.


”Management Unfair to Reliable Liars!” -- Loyal Lackeys Local 138.

Of course, Dubya is hovering at Nixonian 27-32% approval rating.

And Cheney?

Cheney is at –11%. In addition to corporeal beings, dead people, cathedral gargoyles and fictional characters are all coming out strongly against Cheney.

So when people have nothing to lose, they can get a little frisky. And starting talking about "respites".

Meet the Press. -- Ryan Crocker, U.S. ambassador to Iraq.


Russert reads other people’s headlines and then asks: “Has this Surge done any good?”

Crocker: Yes. But no. But yes. It is not a “universally negative” picture.

Shorter Crocker: Iraq – “It’s only mostly dead.”

And Anbar doing great!

Except that Anbar was not the object of the Surge.



Then E.J. Dionne, Kate O'Beirne, Byron York. and Eugene Robinson.

Happy, Snappy, Yappy and Scrappy.

Eugene Robinson: This is pure bait and switch. It's the God Damned White House that set up September as the drop dead date for Iraq in the first place. And now you have Pony Blow talking September way, way, way down. And feigning bumfuzzlement as to why anyone would think September was Some Big Deal. This tells me that Dubya has no serious intention of changing his mind about anything.

Snappy O'Beirne: September is a real deadline. The glass has to be more than half full.

Byron York: The White House is incredibly nervous about this. And the Iraqi Government give them glad-handing bullshit. The White House keeps telling them they are rilly, rilly, rilly serious this time...and the Iraqi government keeps pooping on their shoes and whistling.

Eugene RobinsonL Are the Republicans going to join with the Evil America Hating Democrats and de-fund the war? Because without cutting off the funding for this nightmare, no matter how bad it gets, Bush ain’t leaving.

E.J. Dionne: I think that if you have enough “high powered” Republicans, then that would change things.

driftglass: In September, the Ghost of Barry Goldwater will go to the White House and tell our New Nixon that he has lost.

Then Dubya will show him the door, and Cheney will call him a traitor and threaten his kids.

This White House is now 100% in the bunker. They have welded the hinges shut behind them and are now completely in the thrall of the fascist dogma, propaganda and tactics that got them into the White House in the first place. If they jettison Rove’s Josef Goebbles playbook at this eleventh hour, they have absolutely nothing left, so nothing is going to change as long as Bush/Cheney ’04 are running the show.

Russert: Harry Reid said bad things about Peter Pace to a buncha bloggers. Don’t you think that is just terrible?

E.J. Dionne: We criticize generals all the time. So what?

Process chat about The Horserace. Six month clocks. Money. Early polls. Fred Thompson’s manliness. Rudy’s slithery image south of the Manson-Nixon line.

Hell, south of Battery Park.

Russert (Showing this Time Magazine cover):


Do you think a Centrist Republican would have a chance, given that that Real Americans hate “Washington” because Republicans and Democrats are both “tacking“ to their Bases and “Washington” is the problem.

Really?

Well since Heath Care has become so mainstream that Ford backs it, and most Americans now agree that Iraq is a pan-dimensional clusterfuck, agree that Global Warming is a real problem, agree that Big Oil is selling out this country with Big Pharma running a close second, agree that no one is proposing anything like an Assault Weapons Ban in an age where you can’t find a purebred Socialist outside of the Smithsonian, etc., etc, etc…

…where exactly outside of the dingy imaginations of the Cheetohing Class-pandering Pundit Caste are the Vile Democrats pandering to the Base in some dirty, Commie way that makes them “extreme” ?

Where exactly does this Vast, Invisible army of Lefthood diverge from what most voters believe?

On The Chris Matthews Show:

Howard Fineman: Ignoring Palestine, Lebanon, etc was the de facto policy of the Bush Administration because they came in reflexively Anti-Clinton. Their malignant neglect has helped ruin the situation.

Katty: Bush has made America’s reputation . When Clinton left, the only thing that could have made a difference in the Middle East was America pushing. Now, Bush or a Bush envoy have absolutely no credibility.

Tucker Carlson: If we bring Democracy to the Middle East, then we will be less safe.

Carlson: Michelle Obama joking about her husband being sloppy is “emasculating”.

Thus confirming yet again what a pile of Jello-y spinelessness Conservative pundits really are.

Ah!!! Strong Woman! Bad! Make it go away!

Matthews: We are creating more terrorists than we can kill.

Katty Kay: People are now join jihad organizations because of Iraq


Carlson: I haven’t talked to any Bush Supporter who has thought this through. “Dubya Hates Terr’ists” is as far as they have taken it.

Carslsin doesn’t finish that thought so let me do if for him.

‘“Dubya Hates Terr’ists” is as far as they have taken it…’ because Republicans are morons.

That is their greatest strength: being completely impregnable to facts or logic or thinking-things-throughiness. These are people who elect, over and over again, people that screw them over and then laugh at them for being stupid enough to elect people who screw them over.

Over and over again.

And Carlson feigning bemused surprise that the Bush Regime Dead Enders are meatheads belies the real arithmetic of the real Iraq endgame:

1. The more our boot is on their throats, the more of them we radicalize them. Thus,

2. Giving Conservatives an endless supply of scary brown people to use to justify stomping that boot down ever harder, at home and abroad.

Iraq is a whole country full of oil-rich, infrastructure-poor, beaten-down brown people with weird, non-Jebus based religions for Conservatives to kill, because that is the real end game.

Annihilate everyone between the Jordan River and the Ukraine who will not bend a knee to our Son King and make him a tribute of their love.

Their gratitude for our good works.

And their oil.

The oldest game in the Imperial playbook; Kill ‘em all, take it all, and all while preserving our delicate Righteous White Christianism sensibilities.

But being typically gutless Republican wieners, they have to enact their blood-soaked Imperial ambitions by proxy. Being as how they are far too busy standing on their toilet seats and shrieking “Stop emasculating me!” at the tiny spider hiding behind the tube of styling gel, and all.