Good job on this analysis piece.

And good job on publishing the "Mother's Love" piece, too!

"My questions to him will be: 'What do we need to do to succeed? What is your strategy in dealing with the sectarian violence?'" It felt like a burglar asking how you're going to replace the goods he just stole, or an arsonist asking how you'll rebuild the house he just burned to the ground.

THANK YOU. This is the part they never seem to get. All this time they've been insisting that eventually the Iraqis are going to have to stand on their own feet and run their own freakin' country. And everyone, on both sides of the political spectrum, has been nodding their heads in agreement. We've driven that country into the ground, now we're standing there saying "well, we can't do EVERYTHING for you... this is your responsibility to fix it." We destroyed it, yet we're expecting them to clean it up even though we've screwed up their entire infrastructure and pretty much erased and/or plundered all their resources. We made the mess, but it's up to them to clean it up. Nice.

Reminds me of that age-old domestic violence scene, where the abusive husband throws all the plates from the dinner table into the wall, and the room is covered in food and broken crockery. Then he grabs his wife by the neck, pushes her face into it and screams "LOOK AT THIS PLACE!! NOW CLEAN UP THIS MESS!!"

The Usurper is now truly sui generis as a presidential failure. All the others "worsts" are off the hook. Even Nixon could point to his trip to China as his one success. Not even Babs can point to a single thing that is better in this country or the world since Cardinal Scalia annointed her son.

Economy? Worse by every measure - the deficit, the debt, poverty, income stability, income equality, taxes on the middle class, social security, etc., ad infinitum.

Health Care? Worse by every measure - mortality, cost, access, acute disease, chronic disease, you name it. Even Medicare, the one working part of American Health Care, is now a failure, thanks to shrub.

Environment? Worse by every measure, and probably already past the point of no return on global warming.

National Security? Steerage passengers on the Titanic were safer. Nuclear war is more likely than it's been since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Outside our borders, Americans are nothing but targets.

Freedom/Justice/Liberty/Democracy? The Constitution is shredded beyond repair. Elections are a joke. It's half-wit dictators from now on.

A year ago, my 74-year-old mother said she was glad she wouldn't live to see what this country is coming to.

She's still alive today.

I wish I could say she's already seen the worst, but I'm afraid she'll turn out to be right.

Maybe I've lost my mind during the Thanksgiving holiday, but just where is Sec. Rice while this debacle plays out?

this latest farce would be distinctly enjoyable were it not for the fact that thousands of lives hang in the balance.

I am hoping, no doubt uselessly, that all the people who voted for the current asshole are taking a long look in the mirror, and feeling pretty damned bad about themselves. Because they are directly to blame for all the things a previous poster pointed out about the results of GW's term in office.

I am especially thinking about the five supreme court justices who had the incredible arrogance (and, stupidity), to stop the vote re-count in Florida. A recount that clearly would have shown Al Gore the winner in 2000.

Our system of governance has been jobbed. This is what happens when you job the system. Sooner or later..it bites you back. Unless you destroy it utterly. GW and Dick-baby didn't destroy it utterly, although they have been giving it a good try..just not good enough, apparently.

Welcome to reality, Georgie-boy.

Jesus. Can't we just impeach the mofo and get RID of him? How hard could it be??

None of this should be remarkable or surprising. Bush has been incompetent since....well, we'd have to go back before he presidency to pinpoint it. We would probably have to go back before his Texas governorship (where he was reported to have spent much of his office time playing video games) as well. Or to his mismanagement of a baseball team... He didn't know squat about baseball then; he doesn't know jack about inside-baseball now.

The fact is that Bush has always relied completely on his advisors to make decisions. He needs to have little voices whispering in his ear. Otherwise he is as clueless as Inspector Clouseau. Unfortunately, many of the little voices in his ear are too busy getting indicted or facing other consequences for their corruption. So Bush has to try to make his own decisions, and he has absolutely no idea what he's doing.

You want to stop the sectarian violence? You migth start by admitting to the world what a total disaster the entire Iraq war has been, and apologize to everybody you've drawn into the mess. That might at least earn you some points for honesty. Then maybe people will want to help. Otherwise you're just asking people to prop up your failure. What's in it for them?

You could bribe the Arab nations by announcing a complete shift on your policy of kissing Israel's butt and letting them get away with the wholesale theft of Palestinian land. Tell the Arab nations that if they can help stabilize Iraq, you'll put all possible economic and diplomatic pressure on Israel to dismantle all settlements on what is legally known throughout the international community to be Palestinian land. I think the Arab nations would love to make such a deal. It would help them reduce the extremism in their own countries, much of which is fueled by anger over the Palestinian conflict.

We should give up on trying to control the flow of oil in the Middle East. Yes, we need it badly, but let's start a heavy investment in the technology that produces electric cars and solar power. The government should spearhead this effort and grant massive tax benefits to domestic companies that show results in these areas. Let General Motors lead the way.

Bush has no vision, that's why he can't lead. He doesn't care about humans, he cares about appeasing all of the friends who have helped shoehorn him into power. If Bush's power were based on real leadership ability, he wouldn't be so beholden to so many corrupting influences. But because he's incompetent, he has to continue to "feed the beast" that keeps him aloft, which means he is not working in the interests of common U.S. citizens.

Too bad nobody has the balls to impeach him. It would be painful but worth it in the long run.