You seem to think that the press is trying to force everyone to look at Iraq as a failure- I don't think they are.

Continuing attacks on american troops ARE a legitimate news story.

Of course they are. So are successes. Did YOU know what Operation Ivy Serpent was? How many "people on the street" would? The media spent a LOT of time squalling about the dreadful hospital situation during the war. Why the dead silence now that they are up and running? There are no stories about progress with utilities, only stories about setbacks.

And then of course there is the monomaniacal pursuit of minor inaccuracies in intelligence reports. Now they're trying to stick Bush with the British "45 minute" thing as well.

That we can't get the lights on in Baghdad in the FIFTH month of the war, that is a legitimate story.

BTW, by my count (in my head) it's been about 11 weeks since major combat ended in Iraq. A bit less then five months. Or were we supposed to be fixing the power lines while we were bombing enemy positions?

I think the press is being very quiet about the absence of WMD, I think this is possibly the biggest problem in Governance in our country since the Watergate issue.

Oh, yeah, there has been NOTHING in the papers about Bush and the WMD issue. What the hell papers have you been reading?

I think damn near EVERY liberal (all the ones I've talked to, which is a lot of the 'east coast academic liberals' you like to malign) are praying that we stabilize Iraq and build it up and leave it a secular democracy- regardless of the fact that they opposed the war.

If you say so.

What I do think is that a series of very bad and very immoral political decisions have left us in a position that is VERY dire and grim in Iraq. Folks have allowed their beliefs and ideology to supercede reality and rationality.

Had France, Germany, and several people here had their way, Saddam and Sons would still be in power. Maybe none of you would like it*, but that would have been the result of doing what the peace marchers wanted done. And Saddam and Sons probably would have held power for the next thirty years. Sure, maybe he would have agreed to discard his ambitions for WMD. Sure, just like North Korea did in 1994. If that was the "moral" path, count me out.

You were willing to bet the farm that Saddam would be "safe" for the forseeable future. Bush saw a despot who had demonstrated an overrriding ambition to develop WMD, a demonstrated habit of using them, a demonstrated pattern of lies and concealment in that area, and enough evidence to convince him that he would continue on this path. He came to a different conclusion.

Your thinking process is like putting a convicted multi-offense child molestor in charge of a kindergarten because nobody could prove he had molested anyone recently, and of course, since none of us is Cassandra, there is no way to "empirically prove" that he would do it again.

*Except the Europeans raking in cash from Iraq