Boy Are They Desperate!

This week has produced such a blitz of on-camera appearances and statements from several of the administration cronies that really show how desperate the hard-core Republicans are, just a few days of the partial elections.

Starting with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who said Thursday that anyone demanding deadlines for progress in Iraq should "just back off," because it is too difficult to predict when Iraqis will resume control of their country.
“Back off?” Who are you talking to? Children in a schoolyard engaged in a fistfight? Come on Donald, this is the U.S. of A., not a second rate country run by a dictator. Or so we hope.

Another one entering the scene, as Laura Bush did, is the wife of the Vice-President.
However intellectually apt she may be, she has not helped the “cause” at all, especially when interviewers like W. Blitz on CNN grilled her on her writings from a book she authored called “Sisters”. Of course she denied that certain passages on the book hint to a lesbian affair but, in black and white, here’s a passage of that book:

"Let us go away together, away from the anger and imperatives of men. There will be only the two of us, and we shall linger through long afternoons of sweet retirement. In the evenings I shall read to you while you work your cross-stitch in the firelight. And then we shall go to bed, our bed, my dearest girl." You be the judge.

In the meantime, Cheney himself is under scrutiny thanks to something he said during an interview where VP Cheney agrees it's OK to dunk terrorists in water to save lives.
That prompted a rejection from the White House that the statement endorses "water boarding".
Of course it doesn’t endorse water boarding (a common practice in harsh interrogations, where the subject is almost drowned to scare him/her enough and hopefully confess to whatever the interrogator wants). If it was done it was meant to be just an innocent shower or a pleasant dip in the pool to relax the prisoner, I‘m sure.

An obscure figure, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told a top U.S. diplomat in Iraq, "I'm not America's man in Iraq," during a private meeting Friday, according to a senior aide.
This tops the list I guess, because, if he indeed is not “America’s man in Iraq”, then we all should bring the troops home and let him solve the Iraqi situation. That’s what a free country does. On the other hand al-Maliki doesn’t seem to be “Iraq’s man” either, since he apparently can’t control his own land and citizenry. He is really a symbolic figure created to give the appearance of democracy in a place where tribalism rule.

Finally, Bush gave up on something dear to him that worked for his followers for a long time. He will stop saying, “Stay the course”. RIP, GONE, KAPUT. No more of that. Let’s find another catchy phrase for the masses.

A terrible week for this administration, a bonanza for the Democrats. In a few more days we’ll see the results.