As soon as the Bushes think they've got Iraq subdued, it flares up and foils them — turning victory sour and sending saintly poll numbers wobbly.

Bush's job approval poll numbers are up five points.

Every time the Bushes think they've licked Saddam — who modeled himself on Nebuchadnezzar, the dictator who built palaces and stored arms in the Iraqi desert 2,600 years ago — he comes back to haunt them.

Not sure what definition of "licked" Dowd is using. Saddam, if he still lives, goes from rat hole to rat hole every few hours. Every person he sees, he knows could get thirty million bucks for his head.

The president has tried to shake off the curse with a P.R. push to circumvent the national media and get smaller news outlets to do sunny stories about Iraq.

The P.R. campaign shamelessly included bogus cheerful form letters sent to newspapers, supposedly written by soldiers in Iraq.

Lie.

The source of the letters was an officer in Iraq, and had no connection whatsoever to the Bush administration. It is annoying the mainstream media that they aren't being considered the wellspring of all useful information. Get a clue, guys. You haven't been in the drivers' seat for a long time now, and it just took Bush a while to realize it.

It also entailed sweetening up the official Web site of the United States Central Command. Until recently, the site offered a mix of upbeat stories and accounts of casualties and setbacks. Now it's a litany of smiley postings, like "Soldiers host orphans in Mosul" and "Ninevah Province schools benefit from seized Iraqi assets." You have to go to a different page for casualty reports.

The stories are still true, though. Maybe the DOD was getting tired of the media ignoring the upbeat stories, and figured they wouldn't mind clicking one extra link to find ammo for their unending crepehanging. Sorry Dowd has trouble with clicking links.

Mr. Bush said in interviews that he wanted to "go over the heads of the filter and speak directly with the people" because there was a "sense that people in America aren't getting the truth."

He is right that there has been a filter that has made it hard for Americans — and even Congress — to get the truth on Iraq, but it isn't the press. It's an administration that comically thinks when it hauls out Dick Cheney to say in his condescending high school principal voice that 2 + 2 = 5, we'll buy it.

The vice president hasn't come up with W.M.D., Osama or Saddam. But he says we have uncovered a video of Saddam letting two Doberman pinchers eat one of his generals alive because he didn't trust him. Oh, that's worth $87 billion, the Iraqi version of "When Good Pets Go Bad."

Cheney? Dobermans? What the hell is Dowd talking about? We haven't got Saddam? When we DID get his sons, people like Dowd threw crap at Bush for it. Why would that change if we nailed Saddam? As for WMD, people like Dowd are hoping to God people ignore what David Kay actually said, and pay attention only to what the media said about him.

As for the truth, I think we know where it lies. Dowd's name is an actual definition for a distortion of the truth. I think that says it all right there.

On Monday, Representative George Nethercutt Jr., a Republican from Washington State who visited Iraq, chimed in to help the White House: "The story of what we've done in the postwar period is remarkable. It is a better and more important story than losing a couple of soldiers every day." The congressman puts the casual back in casualty.

Nethercutt was there and saw for himself. So was Rep. Jim Marshall, a Democrat. Was Dowd? Nobody wants to see our troops killed, but any general who made casualties the top priority in a military effort would be fired. The fact that we are succeeding in Iraq outweighs the casualties. Those who want to see the effort in Iraq fail are naturally furious that the news of these successes is being taken directly to the people. If there were no such news, why would the media be worried?

It would be a lot easier to heed good news as well as bad if Bush officials hadn't assured us before we invaded Iraq that there would be no bad.

Lie.

I challenge anyone to find a quote where Bush says that there would be no hardship after May 1st in the Iraqi effort. I can find LOTS of quotes that say the opposite.

First they sold the war to trusting Americans with spin, and now they are trying to sell the occupation to skeptical Americans with more spin.

Dowd's definition of "spin." Taking the news directly to the people, and not spiking what Dowd thinks should be spiked. Sorry, lady. The New York Times isn't calling the shots any more.