Petulant. Stubborn. Isolated. Skewed perspective. Delusional.

According to Bush, Prime Minister Maliki begged the president for the help of the U.S with the violence that had broken out in his country. According to Bush, Maliki asked for those additional troops and promised to dump Sadr and his followers if that is what it would take to restore civility. Bush could not turn his back on buddy Maliki, and so here we are, providing surging troops at Iraq's request.

I don't buy it. Bush et al. continues to dump on Iraq when the going gets tough. Everyone who believes that Maliki asked for this surge, raise your hands.

But the continued arrogance of the Bush circle (I can't call it an administration any longer) to appear before the people and insist that Bush has had a stroke of genius this late in life is absurd. But when you pay people a lot of money, they'll earn their pay.

I've exercised my civic duty by ripping of emails to my elected officials voicing my outrage at Bush's escalation of this war. I hope the media and Congress do their part. Too often both have failed to scrutinize this group, failed to ask the hard questions right from the beginning.

If the inspectors had completed their job and informed Bush et al that Saddam had no weapons, would we still have invaded this country on the pretext of fighting a war on terror? Is it our job to rid the world of tyrants as Bush informed 60 minutes this evening? If so, then do we go into Iran, North Korea, Syria and liberate those countries as well? After all, they are more of a threat today than Iraq was 9/11.

Where's the logic?

The outrage is there. This year, I've emailed more elected officials than I ever have. I've also joined more groups that do work with issues I support. And, as a longtime boomer activist, I intend to replenish my supply of sharpies and posterboard and hurl myself out in the elements for the next march on washington protesting the war.

My biggest problem, next to Bush and his mismanagement of the war, and Katrina, and health care has been with the MEDIA itself and its deficiencies in covering these issues thoroughly.

Too often the media passes on the mindset of the administration by repeating the codes embedded in their press releases. Is this really a "surge" for example? Is the choice really between escalation and withdrawal? These days we have more pundits and columnists with points of views than reporters and as a result a battle for the message. As a result, viewers, those who aren't politically active outside voting, never get a clear picture of what the heck is going on.

Both the media and the politicians who manipulate it have transformed dramatically since Vietnam. In the media, we've lost, at least on air, the bulldog investigative reporter, who's been replaced by those who look better than bulldogs. I'm not saying that beautiful reporters lack quality, but when that's been an overriding factor in choosing broadcast media, then that tells you the "value set" of broadcast corporations. The older, boomer generation of on-air reporters challenged/confronted our elected officials more than the current estate.

Michael Moore, appearing on the Today show sometime after his 911 documentary came out, chided Katie Couric and the media for this very same thing, accusing the media of swallowing hook, line, and sinker all the bs from the president's group instead of asking hard questions and doing the investigative work that might have prevented the Iraq war. The media has turned too late, finally figuring out the real picture that most had from the beginning. Heck, I remember a show Paula Zahn of CNN did a few years ago that was nothing more than a hoo-hah of patriotism for the troops in all their glory in liberating Iraq!!

I'm sure that these elected officials have received tons of emails protesting events in Iraq. Has anyone asked these senators and congresspeople how many? Are you covering the outrage?

This is the first analysis of Joe Lieberman that exposes some very troubling shifts in his political stance. The Joe Lieberman of Al Gore days is certainly not the Joe Lieberman you see today. The man has been damaged, stabbed in the heart because his Democratic cronies deserted him for Ned Lamont. You now see before you a politician in search of a job, and a huge flip-the-bird finger at those in his former life.

After reading Newsweek's account of Lieberman's agreement to abandon the investigation into Bush's Katrina fiasco, I went to his website to send him an email protesting his decision. I was surprised to read a message discouraging communication from anyone not living in Connecticut. (This reinforces that statement of his press secretary in that Newsweek article who informed the reporter that Lieberman sees himself responsible to only his constituents and to God.) Undeterred, I posted my email anyway, using God as my Christian name.

Given your report that a majority of Lieberman's support flowed from outside of Connecticut, I'm surprised at his disavowal of responsibility to those outside supporters! Your next article must delve deeper, analyzing the source of that support. Who were Lieberman's supporters? Were they all domestic? Were some from overseas?

New Orleans continues to suffer and remains rubble while we funnel an extraordinary number of human and financial resources to an ungrateful Iraq. If we had deployed 1/16th of the aid we've given Iraq to New Orleans, we'd have a city preserved and a community thriving once more. The next president-elect will have understood the irony.