Just enough "success" to keep dyin'

People seem to think that Bush's handpicked general (having fired his prior "Commanders on the Ground" he swore he always deferred to) and his handpicked ambassador are going to actually tell them if the game is up in Baghdad in August or September.

We've been counting on somebody telling the unvarnished truth under the Bush Administration for six years now, more than four when it comes to the greatest mistake of them all (really saying something).

Why people think this will actually happen after all these years is beyond me.

Here is Patraeus this weekend:

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said the ongoing increase of nearly 30,000 U.S. troops in the country has achieved "modest progress" but has also met with setbacks such as a rise in devastating suicide bombings and other problems that leave uncertain whether his counterinsurgency strategy will ultimately succeed.

And I predict in four months Patreaus will say EXACTLY THE SAME THING!

And then there is the Ambassador, Ryan Crocker:

"I think the Baghdad security plan ... can buy time, but what it does is buy time for what it ultimately has to be -- a set of political understandings among Iraqis. So I think these months ahead are going to be critical," Crocker said.

Just before Labor Day 2007, Crocker will be saying "these months ahead are going to be critical."

But both will say enough "progress" has been shown to keep going with the plan.

And then at the end of 2007, they'll say the same thing...

...and then in the Spring of 2008...

and then again in the Fall of 2008.

And then in March 2009, when a new President, probably a Democratic President begins a withdrawal, they will be blamed for "LOSING" the war just as "real progress was really being shown."

Or so will write, Joseph Lieberman, in a Wall Street Journal editorial.