This Ought to Make It "Mission Accomplished," eh?

According to Reuters:

As part of a newly honed White House focus on Iraq, Bush will travel to an army base at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, on Tuesday to deliver what his aides are billing as a major speech on the conflict.

Gee, I thought that El Presidente Chimpie thought about Iraq "every day; every single day." You'd think that he'd be "honing" his "focus" on a continuing basis. I hate to be impatient, and patience is a virtue, but since his triumphant landing and prance aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln over two years ago, the crotch-enhanced dress-up queen's message just hasn't seemed to have reached the insurgents . . . or some of his own party.

Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel is angry. He's upset about the more than 1,700 U.S. soldiers killed and nearly 13,000 wounded in Iraq. He's also aggravated by the continued string of sunny assessments from the Bush administration, such as Vice President Dick Cheney's recent remark that the insurgency is in its "last throes." "Things aren't getting better; they're getting worse. The White House is completely disconnected from reality," Hagel tells U.S. News. "It's like they're just making it up as they go along. The reality is that we're losing in Iraq."

Now, according to Daily Kos, Cheney, as another lying mouthpiece for the whole Bushit echo chamber and propaganda machine, is going after Hagel, which just delights me, given that Cheney is a fucking chickenshit chickenhawk and Hagel is a decorated Vietnam veteran. And even though he doesn't carry the weight of a Chuck Hagel, Walter "Freedom Fries" Jones, a Republican Congressman from North Carolina, has now also turned against Bush's little lying war.

"If we were given misinformation intentionally by people in this administration, to commit the authority to send boys, and in some instances girls, to go into Iraq, that is wrong," he is quoted as saying. "Congress must be told the truth."

I wish he'd gone a little farther, adding, "And after Congress gets the truth, we're going to impeach the bastards, remove them from office, indict them on war crimes, and then convict them. It should not be long before they meet their maker at the gallows in the Hague." But still, for the guy who wanted the word "French" excised from American menus, this is quite a turnaround.

Of course, Karl Rove can send his thugs around to "correct" those errant Republicans to keep them in check, but it's going to take more than a Bush charm offensive, with or without the Village People attire, to reverse this:

Barely one in five Americans -- 22 percent -- say they believe that the insurgency is getting weaker while 24 percent believe it is strengthening. More than half -- 53 percent -- say resistance to U.S. and Iraqi government forces has not changed.

On the other side of the world, the sparkling victory given to the Iraqi people fails to impress them.

It is not just the political violence, the bombs and assassinations, and all the security measures taken to suppress them, that bother many people in Baghdad and other badly-hit areas.

It is also straightforward criminality and the feeling that there is no authority controlling the streets.

Perhaps this is what Bush meant while mugging beneath his "Mission Accomplished" banner. In chaos, one finds opportunity. Just ask Halliburton, ask Bechtel, ask the weapons manufacturers. Add to the unnecessary slaughter of Iraqi civilians and the deaths of Americans for a lie the crime of war profiteering and I'd say there's more than enough for these scummy liars to swing from the city gates.