A few random thoughts....

I've spent most of the morning catching up on posts in my favorite blogs...surprisingly, it's been relatively quiet in the land of Left Blogsylvania.

Jesus General has an interesting post up that has me thinking a bit. This small "snippet" gives you a good sense of where he's coming from:

What happens, though, when we elect people who have no interest and/or ability to govern? What happens when we elect people who are more interested in their own personal power than in the general interests of society? We have been experiencing exactly that with the current Republican Congress and administration.

It may not be possible to document the full extent of Republican malfeasance and mismanagement of this country. Major crises, like hurricane Katrina and the 9/11 terrorist attacks, were addressed in ways that almost couldn’t have been worse. Minor issues have been dealt with in an even more incompetent manner. It might be easier to simply list the areas where Republican governance has been competent and effective.

(*crickets chirping*)

Aside from that, the news out of Iraq hasn't been good. Take a look at this compilation from The Raw Story.

Start with car bombs that kill 202 in one day, add to it, Sadr's militia taking over a major radio station, mortar fire into a US Base and the the Prime Minister getting stoned by his own supporters and I'd say you have....

what's that word?

Oh yeah, chaos.

I have to ask the question so many other bloggers have been asking over the past two or three weeks:

Exactly what does "victory" in Iraq look like?

What is our goal and is that an attainable goal? Bush said recently (on his trip to Viet Nam) that we will "win" in Iraq," ...unless we quit." Win what?

Here's an easy way out Mr. Bush. Remember that before the invasion of Iraq you changed your rationale for invading almost every day. Every time somebody contradicted your "reason of the day", you came up with another one. It was pretty tricky to do because you had multiple goals in your self-serving speeches.

You had to crank up your base with the USA! USA! USA!...KICK THEIR ASS AND TAKE THEIR GAS ..mantra...

You had to scare the crap out of Mr and Mrs Middle America and every Soccer Mom in the US...(that smoking gun = mushroom-shaped cloud line was a WINNER...kudos to Frank Luntz for that one heh?)

And, here's the tricky part...you had to refrain from mentioning to the United Nations that it had ANY thing to do with "regime change", so you spoke of "disarming Saddam". Slick. Absolutely slick.

So what does this have to do with getting out of Iraq now? Simple. Just pick one of the "excuses de jour" that you used in the run-up and declare "Mission Accomplished"...(maybe some different phrase would be better) .

For example: Try on the " If Saddam doesn't disarm, we, and a coalition of the willing, will disarm him."

Ta Daaaaaaaaaa! Victory. You sure as hell disarmed Saddam. And you didn't promise a democracy or a glowing republic or even a stinking rose garden afterwards. You didn't say what the cost of "disarming Saddam" was going to be. Who cares if you created another failed state or even another Islamic Theocracy or even another ally for Iran, you "disarmed Saddam".

Wooohoooo! USA! USA! USA!

See, it's that easy.

No charge for the advice Mr Bush.....