Potempkin Putz

Always looking for a new arrangement to declare "this time we've completely got it right" the Bush Administration has decided that what we need in EYERACK is another level of bureaucracy, aka another layer of shit over the pony. Damn, I always thought Republicans hate bureaucracy, but I guess ass covering and eliciting Friedmans is more important than, oh I don't know, relative sanity.

The White House wants to appoint a high-powered czar to oversee the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with authority to issue directions to the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies, but it has had trouble finding anyone able and willing to take the job, according to people close to the situation.

This, of course, is juxtaposed against the "Low Wattage Czar" who allegedly won Florida.

But low-and-behold, the "high powered czar" would actually be neither high-powered, nor, believe it or not, Czar. It would be just another person in Cheney's gunsights.

"The very fundamental issue is, they don't know where the hell they're going," said retired Marine Gen. John J. "Jack" Sheehan, a former top NATO commander who was among those rejecting the job. Sheehan said he believes that Vice President Cheney and his hawkish allies remain more powerful within the administration than pragmatists looking for a way out of Iraq. "So rather than go over there, develop an ulcer and eventually leave, I said, 'No, thanks,' " he said...

...In the course of the discussions, Sheehan said, he called around to get a better feel for the administration landscape.

"There's the residue of the Cheney view -- 'We're going to win, al-Qaeda's there' -- that justifies anything we did," he said. "And then there's the pragmatist view -- how the hell do we get out of Dodge and survive? Unfortunately, the people with the former view are still in the positions of most influence." Sheehan said he wrote a note March 27 declining interest.

I think we can safely say that other than keeping out of 'Nam there's little good that can come of Cheney residue.

But it does show you that when it comes to charges of having absolutely no ideas and intellectual bankruptcy the Bush Administration still knows the value of a good title.

And with that, it's time to appoint Charles Krauthammer "Party Czar". A position that has been vacant ever since we had to put Spuds McKenzie down.