Cheney - Running Over The Same Old Ground

By Cernig

Dick Cheney is in Iraq and has announced that he has a gut feeling that the Iraqi invasion and occupation has been a "successful endevour" which was "well worth the effort".

"I was last in Baghdad 10 months ago and I sense that, as a result of the progress that has been made since then, phenomenal changes in terms of the overall situation," Cheney said after meeting Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

Cheney said there had been a "remarkable turnaround" in security after 30,000 extra troops were sent to Iraq last year to help reduce sectarian violence that threatened civil war.

Despite the improved security, however, some 4 million Iraqis are still displaced, and the International Committee of the Red Cross said in a report on Monday that millions were still deprived of clean water and medical care.

(In fact, that Red Cross report said that some families spend a third of their average monthly wage of $150 just buying clean water and that healthcare in Iraq was "now in worse shape than ever.")

So there you have it - more faith-based victory metrics from the Bush administration.

And while we're on the subject, does anyone seriously believe that the sitting Republican VP arriving in Iraq at the same time as the Republican heir-presumptive, John McCain is just a coincidence, even if the two have no plans to meet up there? me neither. The Republican party is calculating that most American voters are small-c conservatives in that they will prefer the Devil they know to some amorphous "change" and so intend painting McCain's candidacy as a continuation of the last eight years in policy terms even while saying loudly they're doing no such thing. It's all about the framing.

So to help them along in that endevour I've a campaign song for John McSame, seeing as I'm such a kind and helpful soul.

So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell,
Blue skys from pain.
Can you tell a green field
From a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?

And did they get you to trade
Your heros for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange
A walk on part in the war
For a lead role in a cage?

How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl,
Year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found?
The same old fears.
Wish you were here