Guys, I know I said I was going to do this Rapid Roundup on Sundays, but my God...See, I married a cowboy, and the thing about roundups is that if you let a few calves get loose without chasing them down, then others will break free, and pretty soon you'll have what the old-time cowboys call "a wreck" on your hands.

It's that way with Bush administration lies.  There are just so damn many of them running loose out there.  If I wait all the way until Sunday, why, we'll just be over-run with 'em.

So let's just get started.

BUSH IS SHOCKED--SHOCKED I TELL YOU--THAT THE DEMOCRATS HAVE PUT "PORK" IN THE WAR-FUNDING BILL.  TURNS OUT THEY'RE RANK AMATEURS COMPARED TO REPUBLICANS IN 2003, 2004, 2005, & 2006.

We'll just discuss 2005.  I've only got so much space, here, and you've only got so much time.  Keep in mind, shall we?  Bush never puts the war-funding requests in the annual budget.  If he did, there would be oversight.  And we don't want those no-bid contracts to get looked at too closely now, do we? 

Also, if he put half-a-trillion bucks in the actual BUDGET, he wouldn't be able to look like he actually cares about balancing the budget or being fiscally responsible.  And how would the Republicans look THEN?

So he comes up with these "emergency funding" bills.  Oh--before I start listing numbers, funny thing.  One Republican Congress made him wait 118 days before passing the bill, and somehow, the war just went on and the military had their money.  But now that the Democrats are expecting some accountability, why, we've GOT to get it passed NOW or all our poor beloved brave troops will run out of bullets, God bless 'em.

So anyway, here are a few numbers from the Republican emergency war-funding bill of a couple years ago.  As I recall, even when the bill was PASSED, the Marines still came up short on body armor and up-armored vehicles.  But that's okay, because the Republicans had included these juicy tidbits in the war funding bill:

$500 million for ag relief
$1 billion for community-development block grants
$118 million for the Gulf Coast fishing industry
$70 million aid to Ukraine
$12.3 million for Architect of the Capitol
$104 million for watershed protection
$1 million to restore Woody Island historic structures
$1 million to eradicate brown tree snakes
$5 million for the Secret Service to protect Super Bowl football players

Really, it does go on, but I can barely hear over the sound of all the hypocritical oinking.


NOT ONLY WAS NANCY PELOSI ACCOMPANIED BY REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMEN ON HER TRIP TO SYRIA, BUT THEIR TRIP HAD BEEN DONE IN COOPERATION WITH THE ADMINISTRATION.

So, what that means is that even as the President of the United States was scathingly scorning the Speaker of the House for her trip to an axis of evil country, and even as all the television networks were dutifully stenographing his remarks, and even as right-wing talk shows were howling their outrage...the White House was, AT THE SAME TIME, arranging an accompanying trip for Republican congressmen.

Rep. Frank Wolf, (R-Va), later said that he didn't care what the administration was saying publicly about it, that you had to do what you thought was the right thing for your country.

I'm thinking Nancy Pelosi was thinking the same thing.


DEADLY, HORRIBLE FOLLOW-UP TO JOHN McCAIN'S PHOTO-OP LIE AS 24 MERCHANTS FROM THE SHORJA MARKET ARE ROUNDED UP THE NEXT DAY, KIDNAPPED, BOUND, AND SHOT DEAD.

I guess Republicans are so damned used to using this war as stage-props for their phony photo-ops that they just keep forgetting that IT'S A REAL WAR.

The insurgents heard all about it.  They decided to prove John McCain wrong, and two dozen innocent shopkeepers died.

And I'm not even going to discuss the risk that was taken by American troops who swept the market ahead of McCain, surrounded it and secured the perimeter while he was taking his casual Sunday afternoon stroll.  But at least, they're military.  They take risks all the time, even for dumb-ass political hacks who know better.

But those shopkeepers were just trying to feed their families.

Put that in your next press conference, you lying hypocrite.


THE PENTAGON KEEPS REFUSING TO RELEASE A CRUCIAL MONTHLY REPORT TO CONGRESS ON THE "READINESS" OF ALL THOSE IRAQI SECURITY FORCES WE'RE SUPPOSED TO HAVE TRAINED TO TAKE OVER THE PROTECTION OF THEIR OWN COUNTRY.  THE PENTAGON HAS BEEN WITHHOLDING THESE REPORTS FOR MONTHS.

It's not just the House Armed Services Committee that is legally required to collect that report every month; it's also the Government Accountability Office.

The Bush administration has been only too happy to roll out the numbers of forces we are supposed to have trained over there.  They say it's more than 300,000 now.

According to Bryan Bender of the Boston Globe, The Transition Readiness Assessments, or TRA's, are "compiled every month by U.S. advisors embedded with Iraqi units. They rate each unit's perceived loyalty, battle performance, and ability to supply itself in the field.  The reports also chart each units's ethnic breakdown, which is considered key to maintaining a multiethnic force that can police sectarian violence."

So, the reports are there.  The Pentagon's just not releasing them.

Wonder why?


THIS IS ONLY THE SECOND TIME SINCE THE WAR BEGAN THAT THE ARMY IS SENDING LARGE UNITS BACK TO IRAQ WITHOUT GIVING THEM AT LEAST A YEAR AT HOME.  THIS IS A SIGNAL AS TO HOW OVER-STRETCHED THE MILITARY IS IN ITS ATTEMPT TO MEET BUSH'S WAR-DEMANDS.

Here is what retired General Barry McCaffrey wrote in the L.A. Times after returning from a fact-finding trip to Iraq for West Point:

We are running out of time.

The American people have walked away from support of this war.  The Army is beginning to show signs of great strain.  Many units are now on their third combat tour, and the tours are being routinely extended.  Recruiting standards are being lowered.  Our equipment is shot.  By the beginning of the coming year, we will be forced to downsize our deployment to Iraq or the Army will begin to unravel.

Okay, so, let me get this straight.  WE ARE GOING TO HAVE TO DOWNSIZE BY THE FIRST PART OF NEXT YEAR OR THE ARMY WILL COME COMPLETELY APART AT THE SEAMS. 

So...if the Democrats set that as a reasonable date, it is based on FACT, because the military just can't stay in full force there much longer at this rate.  So...if the Republicans call it "retreat and defeat," it will be THEY who are hurting the troops, NOT the Democrats. 

By their stupid sloganizing, by their blind ignorance, and by their chickenhawk refusal to speak up when they knew it was getting this bad.

Recently, the Washington Post held a live chat with their fine war correspondent, Tom Ricks, the author of FIASCO and one of my heroes.  When I posted a question, Mr. Ricks said it "goes right to the crux of the issue," and added that he hoped everyone would read my question.

I had asked him this:  Based on sources I've read, we will need to maintain a strong force presence in Iraq for THREE MORE YEARS, and yet the military is stretched so desperately thin, and troops on their third and fourth deployments are exhausted and burned out.  CAN WE actually, realistically, maintain that presence for THREE YEARS???

He basically said, well, NO.  And he repeated several times, even in other posts to other questions, that he was "worried about these guys on their third deployments, especially the combat deployments.  When they're on their first deployment," he added, "They're all gung-ho.  But by their third deployment, they say, I JUST WANT TO GO HOME AND GET OUT OF THE MARINES."

What's really got the military worried is that all these multiple deployments are going to cause a mass migration of sergeants and officers and NCO's with 10-15 years in, who can't take it anymore.  And when they start to flee in numbers, that will be the beginning of the end of the American military might, because you can't train a good sergeant in boot camp alone.  It takes, well, 10 to 15 years.

Oh, and have I used the word, HYPOCRITS lately?  This piece from NBC's Andrea Mitchell fits the word nicely:


GOP SENATORS WILL BAIL ON BUSH IF "SURGE" DOESN'T SHOW PROGRESS BY SUMMER.

Mitchell has stood by her claims for the better part of a week now, and basically, what she is reporting is that moderate Republican Senators went ahead and voted to back the president's miserable policy EVEN THOUGH THEY DIDN'T REALLY THINK IT WAS GOING TO WORK and that, furthermore, IF THE IRAQI GOVERNMENT DOESN'T SHOW SIGNS OF GETTING THINGS DONE BY THE END OF SUMMER OR THINGS DON'T IMPROVE OVER THERE, THEY WILL WITHDRAW THEIR SUPPORT PUBLICLY.

In other words, what the Democrats have been maintaining, and what Republicans have said not only undermines the troops, but gives aid and comfort to our enemies and ties the hands of "generals in the field," well, bottom line?  Privately, they feel the same way.

And, lest I forget, I have a quote in an article buried too deep to dig up now, from al-Maliki, in which he said that BUSH HIMSELF had told him that if the Iraqis don't start showing some progress by the end of summer, WE WILL START PULLING OUT OUR TROOPS.

That's right.  Bush and his Republican enablers actually, privately, AGREE with the Democrats.  But that doesn't keep them from flaying Democrats alive in the media for being traitors to the troops.

So you got your basic hypocrisy.

And you got your basic courage.

I know which side gets my vote.


FINALLY, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I GIVE YOU OUR ESTEEMED COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, WHO THINKS THAT THOSE WHO HAVE LOVED ONES IN DEPLOYMENT TO THE WAR ARE "TOO EMOTIONAL" TO MAKE GOOD DECISIONS ABOUT THIS WAR.

I'll just quote straight from today's New York Times editorial, "More Than a Feeling":

President Bush and his advisors have made a lot of ridiculous charges about critics of the war in Iraq: they're unpatriotic, they want the terrorists to win, they don't support the troops, to cite just a few.  But none of these seem quite as absurd as President Bush's latest suggestion, that critics of the war whose children are at risk are too "emotional" to see things clearly.

The direct target was Matthew Dowd, one of the chief strategists of Mr. Bush's 2004 presidential campaign, who has grown disillusioned with the president and the war...But by extension, Mr. Bush's comments were insulting to the hundreds of thousands of American's whose sons, daughters, sisters, brothers and spouses have served or will serve in Iraq.

...This form of attack is especially galling from a president who from the start tried to paint this war as virtually sacrifice-free: the Iraqis would welcome America with open arms, the war would be paid for with Iraqi oil revenues--and the all-volunteer military would concentrate the sacrifice on only a portion of the nation's families...

Mr. Bush seems increasingly isolated, clinging to a fantasy version of Iraq that is more and more disconnected from reality.  He gives a frightening impression that he has never heard any voice from any quarter that gave him pause, much less led him to rethink a position.


And it seems to me that, politically, those candidates who insist on marching in lockstep behind Bush and his policies in some kind of show of unity, regardless of what is clearly really happening in this terrible war or what our brave men and women in the field really need...deserve to go down in defeat at the polls, because if we don't get a serious reality-check in the White House within the next couple of years, it won't just be Iraq that goes up in flames.

It will be us.