Bush Pressured To Accept Reality

Only in Washington could a statement about Iraq that has been blatantly obvious to the sane for more than three years be treated as some kind of new revelation. Thus we have the inside the beltway Iraq Study Group saying that "the situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating." No!!! Really??? C'mon!!!

Those who think the Iraq Study Group report represents some kind of progress in the effort to get out of Iraq should think again. The "bipartisan" group included no one who opposed the war from the start, nor do any of its 79 recommendations come even close to suggesting a complete withdrawal of American forces in the foreseeable future. Representative Jack Murtha of Pennsylvania, the defense hawk who shook up official Washington last year when he called for a redeployment of US forces out of Iraq, says the study group's report is essentially an endorsement of the status quo.

We're living in a time when the moral bankruptcy of the establishment political parties is on the level of the Whig v. Democrat configuration of the pre-Civil War days. In the past 24 hours we have seen the approval, by a 95-2 vote, of Robert Gates (he of shady past and also a member of the Iraq Study Group!) as new Defense Secretary; we have seen a leading House Democrat call for sending more troops to Iraq; and we have seen a "bipartisan" report that (not surprisingly) wasn't worth the pre-release hype.

Mr. Bush has been delusional on Iraq from even before the start of hostilities. If anything good can be said about the Iraq Study Group report, it is that it might at the very least pressure the president out of his delusional state and force him to accept the fact of a horrific Iraq reality that was and is a direct result of the incompetence and arrogance of his administration.