You can't polish a Turd

Watching the Iraq war debate play out in the Congress has been bittersweet. Sure it's nice to see the President's expensive and deadly failures pointed out for the world to see. He took the gamble in Iraq and it has not paid any dividends whatsoever.

But just the same it was painful watching so many republican Congressmen take the lectern and shill for Bush's failures. Here's a nugget from the Seattle Times which sums up Bush better than I could:

By sending more soldiers, the U.S. government could "help the Iraqis secure the capital." This, in turn, could provide "political breathing space" for Iraqi politicians to do the work of "reconciliation." Those were (Bush's) words. The quivering lip, the just-woke-up manner, the movement of the eyes, were saying something different. Here was a man who knew that the great gamble of his life had not paid off. He knew the people watching him knew it. He was proposing another roll of the dice at odds none too good, but that postponed admitting a major mistake.

I've boiled the debate down to one talking point to answer the critcs of the resolution: this debate was about stopping the presdident's ill-advised escalation, NOT about turning turds into diamomds, as the Bush apologists would like the world to believe.