Unattainable benchmarks, set by an occupying force that has destroyed the nation, are meaningless. That they haven't been met isn't proof of anything – they never were going to be met.

"I cut the legs off this frog, but I won't keep taking care of it until it jumps at least this high."

Suggestion to Tim: stop fixating on the benchmarks. While they're good for beating up the GOP right now, they have a more sinister purpose: displacing blame on the Iraqis for what the United States did alone. We fucked that country up (we even supported Hussein before opposing him and blowing the place up). Whatever benchmarks are or are not met, we owe reparations and we are guilty of war crimes. Allowing the Iraqis to be blamed is giving our politicians an easy way out -- and even if those politicians who get the easy way out are Democrats, that doesn't make it any less immoral.

As much as I enjoy most of Sidney's articles, the commenters are right: big deal. As if we need any evidence that the Bush administration is a lying sack of shit that used this war to enrich their friends at whatever cost. Iraq, Iran, Oceana -- it doesn't matter, so long as there are endless contracts and the promise of natural resource monopolies.

As for Congress being kept in the dark, that's a load of horseshit Mr. Blumenthal. I knew the Bush crew was not to be trusted at the time, and that their push for war contradicted by what UN inspecters were finding. Hillary and her ilk have no excuses. And just because no member of Congress would publicly refute the idea that Saddam was a threat at the time doesn't mean jack. Sidney knows better than anyone how political calculations are made: "if I say there are no weapons and there are, no matter how remote the possibility, I'm done; If I say there are WMD and there are not, I can bitch about misinformation at a later date -- at no cost to me."

None of this is new. Everything you say was obvious to me and millions of others -- and I was just as afraid before Sid that these guys could do anything.

They wanted to loot, and did. It was clear before the looting started. The American taxpayer has been looted and in order to do the looting a civilization halfway around the world had to be destroyed. We are responsible for the looting of our own nation and we are responsible for the nation we destroyed.

To claim ignorance before this article is to have been out of the loop for years. People need to get with it quickly, because the bullshit veneer that Bush is some misguided jerk who didn't get it right is not an acceptable viewpoint, with or without having read this piece.

I figured that Bush would nominate more controversial figures from the start, like Chertoff, so that the Senate would get tied up in their denunciations and acting AG and Bush stooge, Paul Clement, would be the defacto permanent AG.

Tim wrote:

"[N]one of these benchmarks has been met. Does that matter?"

No, it doesn't. These benchmarks were never going to be met because: a) most are unrealistic; and b) the burden cannot be on Iraq -- a totally devastated and divided nation --- devastated by the United States.

Who cares what Bush says. We are like a dog chasing its tail by pointing out where Bush is inconsistent. This crap is a big waste of time. We have a lying criminal committing war crimes with our tax dollars and in our name. What are we going to do about it? Post more blogs about how Bush's expectations for Iraq aren't coming to fruition? Give me a break.

Given that we need at least 100,000 new jobs each month to keep up with new entries into the workforce, even the 92,000 constituted a loss of jobs (call it "adjusting for inflation").

Additionally, so many of the jobs created are second jobs, and crappy ones at that. Someone laid off from a $30/hr manufacturing job with healthcare, who is then forced to work two burger-flipping jobs, represents "job growth."

I'm sure none of this is new to readers; just want to keep things in perspective.

We already have all the evidence necessary to conclude: 1) the war is a disaster; and 2) that Bush is a negligent president.

At this point all Bush is doing is depressing Democratic turnout in 2008 by committing one impeachable act after another, fully aware that it only makes Congress look rudderless.

It's only day two and the great white hope for the GOP is already trying to have it both ways on an issue at the top of his target base's agenda.

Ouch.

We don't have a democracy. We cannot vote on whether to end a criminal war. But at least we can vote for a party that will make a show at providing cosmetic regulation to the criminal student loan industry. Wow. Power to the people.

I guess there's one silver lining: the public deserves less blame now than it did in 2000 and 2004; at least they're trying. If only there were some system by which they could express their will at the ballot box...

"Look, we already bashed his head in, and maybe we shouldn't have. But he's not moving and it's in our personal interest to take his wallet..."

If the current Democratic Party didn't exist, Karl Rove would have to invent it. The party keeps people off the streets by giving the impression of democracy, but keeps the public from getting excited about voting by acquiescing to whatever horrible status quo the Bush administration has established and refusing to show any courage, of any kind, on any issue.