THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

ODL, The Supreme Exalted Leader of the Bushoviks, has once again made clear that he will not set a "timetable" for extraction from Iraq. In truth, one would have to be as dumb as a Republican to ask for a set time to achieve anything when one is stuck in a tarbaby. What is needed is a plan. A defined mission with clearly set goals, achievable goals that show the progress so often declared but seldom seen. Reaching any of the stated goals may take more or less time than expected and that is why a timetable is a fantasy. With goals, mileposts if you will on the road to success, you have a measure of progress. And that is the prime failure of ODLs Great Iraqi Adventure. Having never stated the real purpose for the war, the is no definable goal, no end in sight. As some of us old enough remember, there is no light at the end of the tunnel. What we have seen so far are a collection of ad hoc responses to crises as they occur. Few of these bear any reasonable connection to the next response because they are crafted not for the situation in Iraq but for domestic consumption by the hometown crowd. As a result more soldiers and Iraqi die each day and fewer and fewer see any purpose to it. And will the Bushoviks ever craft the necessary plan for success in Iraq? Probably not, because our policy, if there is one, has been cobbled together by a bunch of the deepest head up their asses academics ever to crawl out of a university. In turn they have handed their ideas to a group of greedy, evil men who have no purpose in Iraq. Iraq is merely a stepping stone to them. One they will walk away from when they are tired of it, as they did in Afghanistan. Perhaps that is why ODL made this telling remark yesterday.

Bush, acknowledging the prominent role that wavering public support for the war has played in his own drop in popularity, interrupted a reporter inquiring about his sluggish second-term agenda to supply a term used to characterize prolonged U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

"A quagmire, perhaps?" Bush said.

A quagmire indeed!