Like a stopped clock

Richard Cohen, America's Concern Troll, writes a good and accurate column.

This week we reached the mark of 4,000 American dead in Iraq. It is a sad milestone in a grinding war that can never be won and is already lost in so many ways. But even when this war, like Norman Bates's mother, is gussied up by its embalmers and declared a glorious effort, the shame of Abu Ghraib will forever stain George Bush and his top aides. For them, the photos from Abu Ghraib are not pictures. They're mirrors.

Gird up, because the next Cohen column is sure to be one gigantic piece of excrement -- for balance.