WHEN WE GET TO MARS MAYBE WE CAN FORGET ALL ABOUT IRAQ

DIGGING DEEPER
By Ivan G. Goldman

Maybe you're wondering why all those members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats both, are preparing to give Bush the funding he needs to continue the war. Well they just might feel everybody's being too demanding of a President who's been forced to spend much of his energy putting together the glorious trip to Mars he promised us in 2004. Did you forget all about that? Well, he didn't. He's just not that kind of guy, and Congress knows it, even if the rest of us don't.

So Congress must figure that as soon as he gets the space thing out of the way, he'll solve these little Iraq glitches with his usual flair and incisiveness because the fact that we have no mission there and Iraqi citizens overwhelmingly say it's OK to kill U.S. troops and our people are dying and being maimed and crippled for nothing and the average Baghdad family is sitting each night in the dark without running water or a working sewer system, and gangs of freaked-out gunmen are running around outside abducting and torturing people and this Maliki government we're supposed to root for is closely tied to the murderous, psychotic Mahdi Army that's been bombing and shooting our troops for year is dwarfed by our glorious leader's ability to take care of the whole mess as soon as our astronauts set up a Martian golf course.

I guess it turns out when they voted Bush permission to go into Iraq and seize the WMDs these people in Congress also voted to garrison the place forever, all of which apparently makes terrific sense to Democrats like Diane Feinstein who routinely give Bush everything he asks for in Iraq and then complain about his policy. I'm growing a bit weary of the Feinsteins of this world, but I'll just try to focus on how great everything's going to be when we get to Mars.