On the State of Things:

The finger pointing within the Republican party continues. In today's Washington Post, Peter Baker reports Kenneth Adelman, a former Reagan administration official, as saying, "There are a lot of lives that are lost. A country's at stake. A region's at stake. This is a gigantic situation … . This didn't have to be managed this bad. It's just awful."

Shortly after the invasion in 2003, Baker reports, Adelman and others gathered in Chaney's secret layer and toasted Bush and the administration's success in topling the regime in Iraq. So much for "happy days are here again." This was the war that was fought to prove the conservatives' thesis that Vietnam could have been won easily. This is what happens when you live with your head burried up your nether sphincter.

The best advice I ever heard from an Army drill instructor went something like this: "Son, reach down between your thighs, grab holt o' your ears, and give your head a vigorous jerk." (It might have been a bit more explicit.)

We all need to hear that advice every now and again, but who has the courage to tell Bush or Darth Vadar this?