Scientician makes a very good point in highlighting the "strongly disapprove" numbers for Bush--49%. Even more striking is the "strongle disapprove" numbers for the situation in Iraq--59%.

Think about that, folks. Six out of ten Americans strongly disapprove of the situation in Iraq. And what does the media elite tell us? "Let them eat cake!"

Furthermore, the last time they did a breakdown into strongly approve/strongly disapprove for the "war on terrorism," back on 10/8/06, when the overall approve/disapprove numbers were virtually identical what they are today (45-53 then, 44-53 now), the "strongly disapprove" number was 40%.

Also: Was the Iraq War worth fighting? Strongly no: 54%

Oppose the" surge"? Strongly no: 56%

It seems indisputably clear that Iraq is not just a realworld disaster, but a political disaster for the GOP, no matter how hard the Versailles pundits try to spin it otherwise. People aren't merely annoyed--they're mad! It is the anvil that will sink the GOP to the bottom of the sea.

And the pundits? Well, to mix up my metaphors a bit, they'll be choir singing on the deck of the Titanic. What else? "Up! Up! And Way!"

The Versailles press--so well described here in minute particulars--is perhaps best understood as a collection of court gossips, who know full well that they have nothing going for them, aside from close access to the table scraps on which they feed. And the court itself is perhaps best understood as Kevin Phillips has explained it, from several different angles in books written during the Bush II era. It is both the tail end of a reactionary imperial period in our history--analogous to similar periods in the histories of Spain, Holland and Britain--(see Wealth and Democracy) and the eruption of restoration politics--analogous to the British and French restorations--(see American Dynasty.

As Phillips (a lifelong Republican who left the party because of the Bushes) describes in these two books, what we are dealing with is a deeply engrained culture of wealth, privilege, aristocracy and power that is deeply and fundamentally hostile to democracy in principle and to people in practice. We are, in short, battling against monarchist throwbacks, neo-feudalists right out of the pages of early 1980s cyberpunk novels.

We can rest assured that of all the people on Earth, they will be the very last to know what is going on around them... not just step-by-step along the way, but about where it all ends. Because America itself--both the idea and the reality of government of the people, by the people and for the people--is utterly unimagineable, utterly unthinkable to them.