Continuing my headlong rush away from the inevitable:

Or, more accurately, where [**hic**]

/|\ 'What Pie?' /|\

YES! But not at you, Sweetheart---------

Bush’s Simplistic Vision
by Dan Froomkin—The Washington Post

The new wave of violence sweeping Iraq is not just a powerful rejoinder to President Bush's insistence that the U.S. troop surge has been a success -- it's also a reminder of how the problems facing that troubled country are much more complex than he will acknowledge.

In the vision Bush puts forward, there are just two sides in Iraq: The good guys and the bad guys; our team and an enemy. . . .

That the current battle in Basra is essentially between rival Shiite militias fighting for political power doesn't alter his narrative.

[According to] Sudarsan Raghavan and Sholnn Freeman of the Washington Post "As President Bush told an Ohio audience that Iraq was returning to 'normalcy,' administration officials in Washington held meetings to assess what appeared to be a rapidly deteriorating security situation in many parts of the country."
^^^
Peter Baker writes in The Washington Post: "The images from Baghdad and Basra bristled with explosions, burning buildings, angry street protests, rocket smoke wafting from the Green Zone. The words from Dayton were 'remarkable' and 'victory' and 'rebirth.'

"'Normalcy,' President Bush said, 'is returning back to Iraq.'

"Meanwhile, Bush advisers in Washington held a series of meetings to assess what appeared to be a rapidly deteriorating situation in southern Iraq as three rival Shiite militias battled for political power.
Click here for complete text.

Continuing my escapist sequence,
I present 'The Fitness Cats'.

The Lies Conservatives Told Us
and we were stupid enough to believe:
Hale 'Bondad' Stewart wrote for the Huffington Post some months ago:
I think it's time to chime in on the debate [about Reagan's 'fiscally conservative' policies] because the underlying facts -- those pesky things -- aren't very flattering to Reagan. In fact, the facts -- again, those pesky annoying things -- indicate that Reagan was a complete and total fiscal disaster.

Click here for the complete text.
xxx
So, the Conservatives accuse the Liberals of a 'tax and spend' mentality and put themselves forward as fiscally responsible.

If we look at the facts, however, they tell a shockingly different story.

The World We Live In

Some Things Never Change.Others Just Stay The Same.
Remember the pictures of Bush playing the guitar at a birthday party while Katrina raged?

This morning I heard about what was happening while Bears Stearn was being bailed out by the Federal Reserve: Back at the White House, a press conference was going on. Our Entertainer in Chief was hamming it up for the cameras. He actually broke into a little soft-shoe.

I don't know about you, but this sort of behavior seems, to me, like that of someone for whom everything is going according to plan. . . .

Bush Cat:
No see um.
No hear um.
Appropriately, I've got pics that illustrate that he won't look to see what's in front of his nose.
And, he'll do what he has to do to not hear the American people.
But, I don't have one that says anything about not speaking-- because then he wouldn't be able to lie.

McCain Concludes Fact-hiding Mission to Iraq -- March 19, 2008
Mac: ‘Omission Accomplished’

Presumptive G.O.P. nominee John McCain wrapped up his fact-hiding mission to Iraq today, declaring the trip an unqualified success.

“My friends, I came to Iraq to hide the facts about the way the war is going, and in that I have succeeded,” Sen. McCain told reporters. “Omission accomplished.”

Sen. McCain praised his campaign staff for steering clear of visual evidence of recent violence in Baghdad: “Thanks to the hard work of my advance team, the surge has the appearance of working.”

The Arizona senator said that his trip to Iraq was successful in part because he was able to obscure the actual facts with new facts of his own creation.

“It’s a well known fact that Iran is training al-Qaeda,” Sen. McCain said. “And if it wasn’t a well-known fact before, it is now.”

In a speech commemorating the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, President Bush echoed Sen. McCain’s fact-hiding theme.

“As far as the war is concerned, the facts speak for themselves,” Mr. Bush said. “So I won’t mention any of them.”

Mr. Bush acknowledged that the war still presented certain challenges, but concluded on an upbeat note: “Iraq today is in better shape than Bear Stearns.”

The Blog Swarm:
A hybrid post on the Iraq War and the US economy
Once again -- much invective, many differing opinions. Let's peer through the fog and see if we can detect some truth or other here:

Not Sucking Up?
According to Washington Post's Dana Milbank and Lawrence Eagleburger, a former Sec'y of State and an advisor to McCain, who spoke at a meeting of Jewish leaders to reassure them, McCain won't suck up to the far-right- wingnuts.
Of the 3 issues Eagleburger mentioned -- abortion, immigration and stem-cell research, McCain is already committed to 2 of them: abortion and immigration. Eagleburger stated that McCain is in favor of 'some' stem-cell research.
Seems to me they don't have too much to worry about already. They've got him in their pocket on 2 major issues and -- and how much is 'some' research?
As to the abortion issue -- where does McCain get off having any opinion at all? How could it affect his life in the least [other than his electibility, that is. . . .]?
I noted one interesting fact: throughout the vid, Eagleburger is wringing his hands. He clearly looks uncomfortable up there decrying Limburger-and-Co -- even mildly.
[And we already know where McCain stands on another issue near and dear to the far-right's heart (such as it is) -- that of torturing people who aren't just like them.]
See here for the article and video.