With a Whimper

I think the pundit class is starting to get it re: War in Iraq, Mark II. Over the weekend Frank Rich admitted the obvious--we can stick a fork in it:

Nothing that happens on the ground in Iraq can turn around the fate of this war in America: not a shotgun constitution rushed to meet an arbitrary deadline, not another Iraqi election, not higher terrorist body counts, not another battle for Falluja (where insurgents may again regroup, The Los Angeles Times reported last week). A citizenry that was asked to accept tax cuts, not sacrifice, at the war's inception is hardly in the mood to start sacrificing now. There will be neither the volunteers nor the money required to field the wholesale additional American troops that might bolster the security situation in Iraq.

WHAT lies ahead now in Iraq instead is not victory, which Mr. Bush has never clearly defined anyway, but an exit (or triage) strategy that may echo Johnson's March 1968 plan for retreat from Vietnam: some kind of negotiations (in this case, with Sunni elements of the insurgency), followed by more inflated claims about the readiness of the local troops-in-training, whom we'll then throw to the wolves. Such an outcome may lead to even greater disaster, but this administration long ago squandered the credibility needed to make the difficult case that more human and financial resources might prevent Iraq from continuing its descent into civil war and its devolution into jihad central.

Combined with polling data that shows the war about as popular, oh I don't know, burning piles of dung left on the front porch, it's not all that surprising to see folks like Rich announce the beginning of the end (his op-ed is being reflected in straight reporting), while wingnuttia begins a witchhunt.

Well, the war is definitely all over except for the shouting (and wingnuts can do just that)--which might explain the bizarre behavior of el presidente, who, in the midst of political meltdown on a scale that makes the Wicked Witch of the West's look like a minor setback in comparison, can't be bothered with a mom who lost her son, and instead seeks comfort in greenbacks and little league...neither of which demonstrates any degree of capability as a leader (although the former will cement his reputation as a shill).

The very REAL problem for the wingnuts, though, is that reality--which they've been scorning now for quite some time--has a nasty habit of asserting itself...and it's doing so across the board--the splendid little war gone horribly awry, the centerpiece of the domestic agenda no longer even on the table, 9/11 was, at the very least, a case of Team Bush asleep at the wheel, Plamegate is about to take down the evil mastermind, and, in a final ironic twist, the invasion of Iraq, in addition to being THE clusterfuck of the new century, has the additional distinction possibly being RESPONSIBLE for the reintroduction of a small stash of chemical weapons--in Mosul (i.e., in Iraqi Kurdistan).

At this point, Shrubusto won't be riding off into the sunset as much as fading away and radiating...sort of like an old-style television--when you'd shut it off (on foot, mind you, as remote controls were prohibitively expensive) the picture would shrink to a tiny dot before finally disappearing.

It'd be nice if he took the rest of the GOP with him.