DON'T BE CRUEL -- LET GEORGE WEAR HIS FLIGHT-SUIT COSTUME

DIGGING DEEPER , By Ivan G. Goldman

There really is a formula to solve this Iraq business to everyone’s satisfaction. As any good negotiator knows, workable compromises require that all parties first state their desires. In the case of Prince George, he’s been hesitant to divulge what it is he actually wants. That’s why, four years after invading the place without a grown-up policy, he says he doesn’t want to be rushed into anything. But he does promise us a “new way forward,” which he will divulge in a nationwide address at some point after the New Year.

Quite a number of U.S. troops don’t mind letting him take his taking his time -- for example, the six G.I.s who were killed by roadside bombs in Iraq on Dec. 25 and 26. Other Americans are restless. Unfortunately, even this great Churchill-caliber speech we’re going to get in January won’t divulge what the Blunderer-in-Chief actually wants in Iraq. On that point he’s uncharacteristically shy.

Before he went in he railed against WMD and ties to Al-Qaeda. When these proved nonexistent, he said, no big deal, the goal was always to democratize Iraq, and the earlier goals were said not to matter anyway, just as catching Osama turned out, he told us, not to matter anyway.

Okay, I’m a good citizen. I read Orwell. I’m willing to forget what Bush-O-Ramus tells me never happened in the first place. But like a lot of us, I suspect the goals of our leader are not as stated, and that’s why we never seem to get over the solution hump. So in no particular order, let’s state them in his behalf:

DEMOCRATIZE IRAQ
CONTRACTS FOR BUSH’S PALS
OIL
ADULATION
WEAR A SPIFFY UNIFORM
AVENGE DADDY
SHOW UP DADDY
PROTECT PALS IN SAUDI ARABIA
EXPAND POWER OF BUSH REGIME
CLEAR THE WAY FOR THE NEXT BUSH RULER
CUT TAXES FOR RICH GUYS
ARMAGEDDON (FOLLOWED BY PARADISE FOR THE GOOD GUYS, COMMUPANCE FOR BAD GUYS)

Let’s take these goals in order:

Iraq had its election. The contracts for Production Sharing Agreements that are fantastically favorable to Exxon-Mobil, etc. are already in the works and should be completed within weeks. It would take at least two months to get all our service people out of there, so everything’s on track there. Some other contractors -- Bechtel, Halliburton, etc. -- will just continue paying bribes in exchange for contracts to do things that the companies will continue not doing. But instead of spreading some of the action to the Bush people, they'll have to shift all their bribes to Iraqis, who are unlikely to resist.

Let’s pass a resolution declaring Prince George the greatest commander in chief in U.S. history and simultaneously giving him the right to wear his flight-suit costume even to bed. We’ll let him and Laura deal with the zippers.

Daddy’s been avenged and shown up. Saddam’s supposed to be hanged within 30 days. And we’ve had troops in Saudi Arabia ever since the reign of Daddy. Clinton never pulled them out. They protect the oil and the royal family. So there nothing changes.

As for getting another Bush in office, voters are unlikely to come across on that one. They’re getting a tad impatient with the dynasty. But The Smirkster was originally elected by the Supreme Court, and with not much prodding, this new Gang of Justices, rejuvenated by two new appointees from our Prince, are far more right-wing than the court in 2000. So the family will just have to rely on them to do the job. When you compromise, you rarely get all you want.

If we pull out of Iraq we might as well cut more taxes though -- just a little -- for the rich. It’s something that’s so pleasing to Bush-Cheney that they’ll give up plenty in return, and it will show our good faith. Why not, for example, award tax deductions to anyone buying yachts or jewelry worth $1 million or more in one calendar year? It’s distasteful, but hey, after six years of this regime, we’ve all grown used to distasteful. It won’t cost us much, and remember, we won’t have to spend $8 billion a month on Iraq anymore.

The last goal, Armageddon, that’s a little tough, because we don’t actually want to let Junior play with the red button, do we? But probably a joint congressional resolution favoring the concept of the End of Times will satisfy him.

Some might ask, as “centrists” like Diane Feinstein do, what will happen to Iraq after we pull out? We understand their concern. Feinstein's hubby, for example, has a gazillion-dollar contract predicated on U.S. participation in a continuing Iraq war. But he'll just have to take his chances along with Halliburton and Bechtel [see above] And the answer to what will happen in Iraq, is, of course, the same whether we withdraw in five, ten, or twenty years or in two months -- chaos and death. Perhaps we could leave behind a statue of Junior in his flight-suit costume. It will mollify him and simultaneously provide the first step toward the unification of all Iraqi parties as they pull together lickety-split to handle that statue.

WHITE HOUSE 'QUESTIONERS' PLACE KEYS, CELL PHONES, MINDS ON CONVEYER BELT

DIGGING DEEPER , By Ivan G. Goldman

Secret White House functionaries slipped mysterious but potent Mickeys into the bloodstreams of journalists at Prince George’s press conference this morning.

The substance, whose precise chemical construction remains a mystery, rendered them incapable of asking questions beyond the first level of Hindu consciousness. Snails could have achieved equivalent success. Consequently, the Blunderer-in-Chief was once again allowed to ramble on about “victory” in Iraq and even his imaginary crusade for green energy. It's not terribly uplifting when the President of your country parades his psychoses around like this, but it's downright depressing when journalists on site either pretend they're listening to someone with all his marbles or are too dumb to know the difference.

There was not one question about the billions of dollars in contracts awarded to pals of him and Shotgun Cheney for Iraq buildings, dams, bridges, energy systems, and programs that don’t exist. The money, of course, does exist. It’s in the hands of the contractors, all of it borrowed by the government and to be paid off over time by future generations.

As the Bush-O-Ramus babbled simplicities about how yes, Iraq’s tougher than he anticipated, but “we” will achieve success in assisting Iraqis to build a flourishing democracy, he was never asked about the fact that the most powerful segment within this government coalition our troops are dying to defend is controlled by Mullah Muqtada al-Sadr, whose 60,000 militiamen have been ambushing our troops for nearly four years. Among those they’ve killed was Cindy Sheehan’s son Casey.

At some point, uable to bear more of this, I switched off NPR and listened to Puccini. Man, did that feel better! But I did read the news accounts, and it turns out I didn't miss a thing except actually hearing The Decider's uniquely mangled pronunciations. The phony bastard’s Justice Department as he spoke was fighting in court to avoid enforcing any provisions against global warming because, according to these lawyers we’re paying over at Justice, the EPA doesn’t have the power to force industry to do such things. Also precisely at that moment the Bush regime was listening in our phone calls, monitoring our emails, and torturing suspects who aren’t allowed to see attorneys or file writs of habeas corpus. From whence it finds these powers no one seems to know, but evidently it would be impolite and impolitic to ask the tyrannical goofus at the top.

The "questioners" this morning – people supposed to be looking out for the interests of the citizens -- were probably slipped the Mickeys sometime after they placed their shoes, cell phones, keys, and minds on the conveyer belt.

The current issue of Columbia Journalism Review is a brilliantly assembled oral history of the Iraq war in the words of journalists over there. These people, many of whom came very close to death in pursuit of their mission, explained the disconnect between what we're told by the government and what they were seeing. But they never explained the disconnect between what they saw and what many of them reported. Somehow the administration found the key to regulating their behavior. Slipping them a Mickey is as good an explanation as any.

WHAT DOES THE IRAQ PANEL REPORT AND A CHENEY HUNTING PARTNER HAVE IN COMMON? LOTS OF HOLES

DIGGING DEEPER , By Ivan G. Goldman

Let's look at just two suggestions from the Iraq Commission:

1. MORE EMPHASIS ON TRAINING IRAQI SECURITY FORCES: How much thinking did they do on that one? We’ve been training these people four years, and the trainers are good at it. But because many of their "students" are the very death squads and goonies firing on our troops and murdering Iraqi civilians, that doesn’t look like a terribly productive suggestion.

2. THE CLAUSE THAT SAYS FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS “IF CONDITIONS ALLOW.” Even Bush is smart enough to find the holes in that one. It’s clear this commission report was so aimed at consensus that nothing of value survived. The final product was a pile of trash waiting out on the curb.

But weak as it is, the report still disturbs Prince George because it deviates from his fantasy that we will push on to “victory.” The Bush-o-Ramus fails to understand the difference between a slogan and a policy, and he's repelled by anyone who can. A weakling and a bully, he’s surrounded himself with schlemiels who agree with everything he says, and the panel didn't quite play the game he's used to. Yet panel members wouldn't even use the term "civil war" for fear of riling You Know Who and his faithful companion Shotgun Cheney.

To the nation at large the prince is play-acting, as always, these days playing the part of cartoon character Lucy, who promises Charlie Brown that this time she’ll let him kick the football.

Meanwhile every day that goes by he whacks off another piece of the Iraq Panel’s already-watered-down suggestions, calling them unacceptable. At the same time, more G.I.s die in the prince's misguided effort to salvage his reputation. But oh sure, he’s willing to listen. Sure he is. Here’s some of what he’s already said prior to that big speech scheduled sometime in the never-never of January:

"I've heard some ideas that would lead to defeat, and I reject those ideas -- ideas such as leaving before the job is done. We're not going to give up. The stakes are too high and the consequences too grave to turn Iraq over to extremists."

By the time he gets around to responding to those recommendations that he hasn’t already rejected, there won’t be any left. Face it. There are no new ideas on Iraq. When you're presented with a corpse on the pavement, it's too late for remedies. Call a wagon. The longer we stay, the more damage we do to ourselves and the Iraqis. How can we possibly say we’re there fighting for democracy when most Iraqis want us out anyway?

Our troops over there are spread so thin they can’t patrol the roads on foot. That means troops and civilian mercenaries transporting people and supplies up and down those roads are nothing more than targets. (By the way, a majority of Iraqis say it's okay to fire on U.S. troops) After four years we’re still unable to control the road between Baghdad Airport and Fort Apache (known as the Green Zone)

The only way to stop our participation in this pointless war is to yank Bush and Cheney out of office, which means, yes, impeachment for a host of crimes, some of which Democrat Rep. Henry Waxman has already documented but been unable to do anything about because of the dead-ass Republicans that were running his investigative committee. More about the crimes another time. I don’t know about you, but I need rest intervals after thinking about Bush for too long. He makes my head hurt.

AS THE REPUBLIC SINKS, WE SEEK COMFORT FROM LIAR GATES, FIXER-IN-CHIEF BAKER

DIGGING DEEPER , By Ivan G. Goldman

Robert Gates will sail through the Senate as the next Defense Secretary, not on his merits, but because everyone is so pleased to have Anybody But Rumsfeld. And James Baker, named to head a commission on how to get the Blunderer-in-Chief out of Iraq, profits from a similar dynamic. Most of us are so happy to have at least a small shot at changing Prince George’s disastrous non-policy in the Middle East that we skip over the fact that Baker is the general who led the campaign that stole the presidency for Bush-O-Ramus in the first place.

Fix-Master Baker knew he didn’t have to present a winning case in 2000 – not with five Republicans on the Supreme Court. He just needed to construct one that was sufficiently plausible so they could get away with calling Florida for the guy who lost Florida as well as the national popular vote by a margin of 530,000.

Baker spat out just enough lawyer-speak to give the Gang of Five their excuse, landing the most egregious blow to our democracy since the Dred Scott decision. If roles were reversed, if Baker had an actual winning hand instead of the bluffing cards he used to get the victory, it wouldn’t have taken him an entire month. Swindles are more complicated and take more work than honest business.

Back to Gates. At least two CIA whistle-blowers told Congress under oath that he’d doctored intelligence under orders from the secret society within the Administration that got Reagan re-elected while he was already debilitated from Alzheimer’s. The group then ran the government for him. Baker, first White House Chief of Staff and later Treasury Secretary when he switched jobs with Donald Regan, was a key member of this collective presidency to whom Gates gave his allegiance.

Under oath, Gates, desperate to run the spy agency, denied conversations during which he defended presenting false intelligence for political purposes. With Nixon's old tape recorder in a museum somewhere, he got away with it -- just barely.

Gates took a giant step forward when he conceded today that the U.S. is not winning the Iraq War, and Anybody But Rumsfeld makes a kind of sense. But he also made it clear to anyone really listening that he doesn't have the imagination to exit, which is a death sentence to a lot of troops there now and the ones he'll feed into a pointless grinder during the next two years. It would be a mistake to buy a used car from either this devious apparatchik of the right or soul-less co-conspirator and Fixer-in-Chief Baker.