Denial Ain't Just A River In Iraq

Holy detachment from reality, Batman!

President Bush marked the anniversary of the Iraq war Sunday by touting the efforts to build democracy there and avoiding any mention of the daily violence that rages three years after he ordered an invasion.

The president didn't utter the word "war."
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"Now is the time for resolve, not retreat," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld wrote in a column for The Washington Post. "Turning our backs on postwar Iraq today would be the modern equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis."
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"Now is the time for resolve, not retreat," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld wrote in a column for The Washington Post. "Turning our backs on postwar Iraq today would be the modern equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis."

Yet there were acknowledgments from the top commander of U.S. forces in Iraq that the situation is fragile and that he did not predict the strength of the insurgency.

"I did not think it would be as robust as it has been," Gen. George W. Casey said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "And it's something that, obviously, with my time here on the ground, my thinking on that has gained much greater clarity and insight."

Bush did not mention the insurgent attacks, the car bombs or the mounting Iraqi deaths in a two-minute statement to reporters outside the White House after returning from a weekend at Camp David. Avoiding the word "war," he called the day "the third anniversary of the beginning of the liberation of Iraq."
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On Sunday, Vice President Dick Cheney did not express any regret for predicting in the days before the invasion that U.S. troops would be greeted as liberators or his assessment 10 months ago that the insurgency was in its "last throes." On the contrary, he said the optimistic statements "were basically accurate, reflect reality."
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Cheney blamed the negative perception on news coverage of the daily violence instead of the progress being made toward democracy.

"There is a constant sort of perception, if you will, that's created because what's newsworthy is the car bomb in Baghdad," the vice president said. "It's not all the work that went on that day in 15 other provinces."

You know, Cheney's right.  Why do we focus so much on the attacks on the WTC and Pentagon on 9/11 when it's not all the work that went on that day in 49 other states?

Jeebus, I'd like to introduce the nutcases in charge to my friend, Reality.  We don't always get along, but in the end I prefer having him around.

ntodd

[Update: I should note that while my post was entirely correct, I failed to mention the shocking fact that the article was written by none other than Nedra Pickler.]