Quoth Dubya:

"But it's one thing to put people in uniform, and another thing to have clear command structure, or the capacity to move troops from point A to point B, or the capacity to make sure that the troop carrier from point A to point B has got the necessary air in its tires or oil in its engine. In other words, this is a sophisticated operation to get a unifying army stood up."

Putting air in tires or oil in engines is "sophisticated"? My God. Seems to ME that such items are basic and certainly necessary, but hardly sophisticated. Then again, that all depends on your definition of the word -- to the logic-challenged, I suppose such things ARE tremendously sophisticated...

I blame it on Grand Theft Auto and similar video games.

decided to remain delusional.

You can't judge the poor guy's competence from looking him in the eye, nor from current performance because he's in an impossible situation. Iraq's been trashed beyond repair (thanks, America) and it's just futile to expect al-Maliki to be able to put it back together again.

To me, this seems like a classic Bush exit strategy from a bad decision. A memo like Hadley's does not get leaked, at a time the press is paying this much attention to Maliki, without Bush's approval. It simply wouldn't happen.

Bush's political strategy in virtually every arena has been to deflect any blame from his administration and pin it on someone else. We've seen it countless times, and we're about to see it again. Bush is going to say all the right things to the press this week about Maliki and how he's the right leader for Iraq. But behind the scenes, his people will be sowing the seeds of doubt about Maliki's leadership, as the Hadely memo got the ball rolling on.

Then, when the troop pull-out occurs, probably around the start of the 2008 primary season, the Bush administration will pin the entirety of the blame on Maliki's ineffectiveness. Amongst all the clamoring about an actual Iraq exit strategy, Bush is beginning the political exit strategy, while trying to wash his hands of the problems.

A sign of leadership is admitting your mistakes. Jagoff. One thing I'll say for Bush is that he's got some set of brass balls.

So, Maliki is frustrated because we've been "slow about giving him the tools necessary to protect the Iraqi people."

Yeah, I guess 3000 American soldiers dead, tens of thousands of them permanently disfigured and maimed, and a half a trillion dollars wasted just isn't enough.

In other words, he's doing a heckuva job.