BUSH HAS NO SOLUTION-- AND SO FAR I'M NOT HEARING ANYTHING FROM MOST OF THE OTHER POLITICAL HACKS (OF EITHER PARTY) WHO GOT US INTO THIS MESS

I just watched that Bush speech on TV, although I don't know why I bothered. It was nothing but retread failure-- same old crap with no life to it, delivered by some freak caught in the headlights. Like the right-wingers, I blame Clinton-- but for a different reason. Clinton made it look so easy to be president. I mean he had it all going on at once-- foreign policy, economy, all the domestic stuff, long-term, short-term, deficits disappearing-- and he had time for extracurricular stuff and still batted away a right-wing onslaught like nothing that had ever been launched against any president ever. It looked so easy that even a borderline retarded ex-drug addict who had failed abysmally at every single thing he had ever put his hand to, allowed himself to be talked into running for president.

Tonight we saw him; the guy-- who famously referred to the report from the Iraq Study Group (which no one believes he's capable of comprehending) as "a flaming turd"-- is completely delusional. He reads speeches someone writes-- even Britt Hume muttered something to the effect of "I guess we're past the point now where it matters whether it's a very eloquent speech, or very well written..."-- that he probably doesn't even try to comprehend and he delivers them with no passion whatsoever. While he was blabbling on, a friend of mine called, a Secret Service agent. He said Bush was pissed because it was past his bedtime and he didn't want to be wasting his time. I can barely get angry at Bush any longer.

I sure did get angry with that piece of crap Democratic Majority Leader before Bush went on though. Hoyer was interviewed on CNN. When they asked him if he agreed with Senator Kennedy's proposals to end the war he said "NO" so fast that it felt like he was spitting out poison. I guess he's on the symbolic opposing of war team, not the actual opposing of the war team-- if something that is big enough to be called "a team" really even exists within the Democraic caucus. The first press statements that came in after the speech were from two guys I suspect are also on the symbolic team (Ike Skelton, the ultra conservative Chairman of the House Armed Service Committee, and Tom Lantos, Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. They're both well-written and they seem designed to appeal to people who are against escalation but neither goes so far as to support stopping escalation the way Ted Kennedy and Jack Murtha are proposing to do. You just can't trust these guys at all. Skelton:

Over the last month, I have met with the President twice and have shared my concerns about escalating the number of U.S . troops in Iraq. The proposed increase in U.S. troop levels in Iraq is three and a half years late and several hundred thousand troops short. The Administration had the opportunity before we invaded Iraq to heed General Eric Shinseki's advice on the troop levels required to stabilize a country in crisis. Sadly, the General's recommendations were dismissed out of hand.

            This proposed troop increase is not a new strategy; it is a change in tactics. The President's announcement simply repackages a military plan that has been tried before-- admittedly without today's hype-- but our experience has shown that a limited infusion of troops will not necessarily produce the improvement to Iraqi security that we hoped. I remain to be convinced that increasing the number of U.S. troops in Iraq will have a measurable affect on the security situation in Iraq...

Not a word about doing anything to check Bush's plans. Lantos was the same toothless crap:

I oppose the so-called surge that constitutes the centerpiece of the President's plan.  Our efforts in Iraq are a mess, and throwing in more troops will not improve it. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, together with myself and other committee heads on Capitol Hill, have repeatedly called for a phased reduction of the U.S. presence in Iraq. Nothing in the President's speech changes that.
Our country would not be in this predicament now had there been sufficient forces committed to the effort years ago. General Eric Shinseki recommended, and I strongly supported, sending in hundreds of thousands of well-protected soldiers to prevent any possibility of bloodshed beyond direct confrontation with Saddam's troops. This would have brought major combat operations to a swift close and left plenty of personnel to guard against a flare-up of fighting, not to mention the looting, vandalism and general chaos that ensued.
When I toured northern Iraq by helicopter with General David Petraeus, who was then in charge of our forces there, he pointed to vast ammunition caches that could not be secured because he did not have enough soldiers to assign to such duty. We will never know how much of that ammunition has since been used against our troops and innocent Iraqi civilians. 
It is too late to address this and numerous other problems that arose from insufficient commitment of resources to the invasion, which was based on bad information from the start. You cannot unscramble an omelet. And you certainly can't make it any more palatable by adding more of the same ingredients. With Iraq sliding into civil war and the Iraqi government still not showing sufficient determination to disarm the militias, we need to involve other parties in the region to take more responsibility for creating a stable Iraq with lasting and meaningful reconstruction."
 
On Thursday afternoon Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will brief the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on diplomatic efforts to improve the future in Iraq.  Next week, hearings are planned with former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and leaders of the Iraq Study Group, including former Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Jim Hamilton.

So that's what we've got-- a half-assed escalation that has already begun, ordered by a functional nitwit who doesn't understand the difference between tactics and strategy; and a bunch of Democratic hawks crying that we didn't attack with enough forces 4 years ago? And now they're going to... take testimony from Madeleine Albright and Jim-- he must mean Lee-- Hamilton? This is sick!