Hardly.

Rove will get his multi-million dollar book deal, become the king of Fox Network, and keep his hand firmly up Bush's behind while George "talks". Distance is no impediment. That's why we have RNC Blackberries.

This has to be a strategy to keep more investigations from spilling into the hallway outside W's office. On the other hand, one wonders what it is that is moving toward "out of control" so fast that it could give Bush's brain travelin' fever. Can't wait for the other shoe to drop. Or maybe, like Rumsfeld, it's just time to slink away and pretend he's a success while the disaster is still in the spin cycle.

Bush can keep citing privilege over anything concerning Rove's dark dealings so there won't be anything ugly in he works there...Leahy's "miffed" stance notwithstanding. And now, gee, the guy doesn't even work for him. So how could anyone claim there is a Rovian stench at the White House.

I hope the GSA has been putting out huge no-bid contracts on fumigating the White House after they're all gone. Gone, but alas, not forgotten until my great grandchildren are old enough to vote. If then.

@chango...

Let's be a little careful about blanket wishes for the younger generation to step up to the plate. It isn't about age bringing change for the better.

I would point out that aside from the Evil Old Farts Club (including the Middle-aged Chapter)many, if not most, of the facilitators of this administration's fiascos, farces and crimes have been inexperienced and apparently brainless zealots in their twenties...and barely thirties.

I think they call them Young Republicans. It isn't the age on your driver's license that counts. It's wisdom, integrity, intelligence, compassion...and all those other things they don't teach you at Oral Roberts' Fast-Trackin' Bible-thumpin' College.

Don't pray for youth to save us. Pray for competence and a moral compass.

Bush likes to spend as much time in the heat doing physical labor as he can manage. It's boot camp to toughen him up for what he knows is coming when the grim reaper finally comes calling.

And all this bike riding and White House gym stuff is a fevered attempt to put off the inevitable for as long as possible.

That's the nice thing about Christianity. There is a hell. And for someone as insecure as "W", it must stick in his mind like a big ol' tumbleweed tangled in a barbed-wire fence. (He's really hooked me on those folksy Texas descriptives.)

Having looked into his own eyes every morning and seen his soul, as he is so fond of doing with everyone else, he can't possibly believe his own press anymore. Unless he really is certifiably nuts. Oops, there goes my fear-of-hell theory.

Is this the best assessment we can get out of the military mastermind who is going to make an apple pie out of the sectarian violence in Iraq?

Putting babbling yes men in every corner of the government is bad enough. But choosing a general for his ability to Bushspeak is not just a betrayal of our country...it is a betrayal of our troops. Bush as Commander-in-chief, and Petraeus as his say-nothing, do-nothing sidekick is a slap in the face to the men and women who are charged with prosecuting this insane war. They now know we shouldn't be there. But we are. So they do their duty having suffered through no plan, no armor, no healthcare, no equipment, no rest, no respect, no end.

No leadership.

I recently spoke with a mother whose son died in Iraq, and the military termed it a suicide. She thinks he was killed by the brand new wife he had acquired and barely knew, a medical worker the mom says slipped him a drug for the insurance. He actually did die from it, and it was something one would never take for "recreational" purposes, and which he was not taking for any medical reason. It's a pretty bizarre story...but not anymore bizarre than the Pat Tillman coverup. The military has treated her like the hysterical mother she probably is...who wouldn't be?...but that doesn't mean they shouldn't look into her concerns. Her theory aside, she wasn't treated like the mother of someone who died serving his country. She was treated like the mother of a pariah.

He wasn't treated any better. His body was sent home on a commercial plane, and the coffin sat alone in the cargo hold for four hours. The better, she was told, to save them from the uncomfortable sight of a dead soldier's coffin. The arrangements for his burial were appalling, with minimal effort made to acknowledge his service.

Her treatment was anything but sympathetic. And her son's treatment anything but dignified.

The basic truth is: if he hadn't been sent there, he wouldn't have died there. The circumstances are irrelevant.

Whatever the circumstances of death, the men and women who are serving deserve honor. Suicide is the most tragic of all military deaths, in my opinion. And it isn't any less inflicted by the horrific circumstances of this war than a bulltet in the head. It's worse.

The suicide rate is an indication that we are not taking care of them. I've said it before...it is a fact that they are doling out anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication to people they send right back out on patrol. When they return, they face humiliation and stonewalling if they ask for help.

And as the Bush administration shills and the spineless Democrats posture with such deceptive, sanitized terms as "surge" and "troop strength", they are condemning people to death by enemy hands, friendly fire, suicide, or the slow death of a life in shambles.

When Rice and Gates go to Congress with their phoney progress report, someone needs to remind them of the long list of devastating consequences the military has suffered at their hands, and ask the question: how do you sleep at night?