The Shit Offensive

I feel hungover -- and I didn't even earn it -- so this story of Iraq fits in with my mood.

First, the Bush version:

Energy Secretary Sammy "What, You haven't heard of me?" Bodman:

“The situation seems far more stable than when I was here two or three years ago,” he said in an interview in the fortified Green Zone. “The security seems better, people are more relaxed. There is an optimism, at least among the people I talked to.”

Apparently, Bodman managed to go to Iraq and not talk to anyone until he returned the the United States and talked to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Cheney.

And now, reality!

Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the chief military spokesman, said there had been an average of 34 attacks a day involving U.S. and Iraqi forces in and around the capital since Friday -- up sharply from the daily average of 24 registered between June 14 and July 13.

"The only way we're going to be successful in Baghdad is to get the weapons off the streets," Caldwell said. He said insurgents were streaming into the capital for "an all-out assault against the Baghdad area."

Well, if they are going to do this, I hope, for the Bush Administration's sake they do it while the media is covering Lebanon. That way we'll never know.

Here is the essence of Bush surreal politik, poke the bear with a stick until you get a rise out of him (sorry if that brings up Scooter Libby's novel) or the oft-analogized, knocking down the hornets' nest to see what happens. Shake up the status quo -- he's doing this in Lebanon-Israel now -- thinking that eventually it will be better.

The fact that this has pretty much never worked in the entire lamentable history of humanity, leaves him undeterred because "this time it will" -- even while it clearly is not.

TBogg, I believe sums it up perfectly:

It is truly stunning to survey how much damage this shallow stupid man has done to the world in six short years, and to realize that we will be picking up after his mess for generations to come while he and Laura go back to Crawford and drink their dullwitted selves into oblivion.