Families of deceased US servicewomen and men can now select a pentacle for their gravestones. What a privilege. It took some lawsuits, salutations to the God and Goddess and several sticky spells, but the Bush administration finally caved to their demands. Celebratory bonfires flared up in various suburban backyards. [WaPo]

The New York Times has posted this article about how Iraq is dealing with all the crazy Saddam kitsch they have left over from his twenty-whatever years as dictator. Do they keep it or destroy it?

As we all know, the only thing Saddam loved more than building palaces and making videos of his sons’ cabal gang-raping women was commissioning works of public art to commemorate his reign and his commitment to the Iraqi people. I mean, what a waste, an unconscionable waste, to just throw this shit away. We don’t mean to suggest that there needs to be some kind of Saddam museum or anything like that. But just doing the Google Image search to find something suitable for this post turned up scant results.

Just as you wouldn’t want to go to all the trouble of executing Saddam without at least making a video to post on YouTube, why would you destroy all the Saddam commemorative art without at least taking pictures of it first? Granted, the heroic men and women who are on the ground in Iraq fighting for democracy taking it upon themselves to do a lot of this work. But a more systematic cataloging effort should be undertaken. We’re just saying.

Passed narrowly by the House last week, the new funding package for the Iraq war with a timetable for withdrawal squeezed through the Senate today as well. Bush, of course, staunchly reaffirmed his commitment to veto the bill when it reaches his desk sometime next week. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said, “If the president vetoes this bill, it is an asterisk in history.He sets the record for undermining the troops more than any president we have ever had.” Zing!

Another asterisk in history is necessary to indicate that the Democrats now have a giant set of balls, and it’s the first time in about 50 years. And Bush, true to form, will do the dumbest thing imaginable and veto the bill. Democratic president, anyone?[WP][NYT]

“Hi, I’m President Stupid and I’m going to run my administration into the ground.”

Please allow me the pleasure of an explanation. As you may or may not have heard, Congressional Democrats quite unexpectedly produced some nuts and outlined a plan for Iraq withdrawal for – note the date – September 1, 2008. Yes, I bolded it for you to make it easier to understand. The Cut-And-Run-Ocrats are going to time Iraq withdrawal two months before the presidential election so that they will win. Sneaky, right? Oh, but there’s more.

So, President Scratchandsniff the Decider in Chief decidedly intends to veto the withdrawal measure. Of course. In favor of the status quo. two months before the presidential election. Because he’s smart.

Thus! The Democrats get the best possible political outcome. They are going to move to end the war that at this point everyone hates (popular move, election winning move) but then they’re going to be stopped by an jackass president who are this point pretty much everyone hates and thinks is an idiot (stupid move, election losing move). And the Republican nominee (and please jesus oh man do i hope it’s Mitt Romney) is going to be standing around saying “Well this withdrawal plan is flawed but I would talk to Congress to make it work blah blah blah” because President Headuphisass will have exactly no one on his side. So the Dems get to look like leaders without having to bare the responsibility of actual leadaership. Bush is out-inepting the Democrats. In Congress.

Really. There are so many levels here it’s almost too much.

So Bush is going personally to see to it that the Democrats get a double win in 2008! Why, how thoughtful of you, President Shitforbrains! This is your best move since you kept Rummy on until after you lost the last election! This is the kind of politics that gives me a full-on boner. If only they had let President Chim Chim call the shots since day one! It’s like Christmas every single day!

And I’m sure the cost in human life will be negligible on any meaningful scale.

This just in, folks:

Saddam Hussein has been executed. Yeah. No joke.

Even after all the reports about his lawyers postponing the date for another month, the international court of law and the death penalty still prove to be much, much, much faster than in the United States. (Dare we say deadlier, too? More inhumane? Well, damn. He was hung to death. We stopped doing that shit, um, a couple of decades ago. Except in Washington State and New Hampshire. Nevermind.)

The former president turned self-appointed martyr was executed overnight in Baghad’s Green Zone, MSNBC tells us.

What’s our American President have to say?

Saddam’s conviction was hailed by President Bush as a triumph for the democracy he promised to foster in Iraq after the 2003 invasion.

We assume it’s a little late for an appeal…

More to come…

(Editor’s Note: A hell of a lot more to come, whether we write about it or not…)

We’re not talking about the doodle game played in notebook margins. Iraq’s top judge knocks down Saddam’s appeal and the former dictator will be strung up. Analysis so far says it’s a sad, sad thing for Iraq. The Economist basically says it’s a pointless act in a greater quagmire of deadly issues. We guess. Unless, you know, you’re actually from Iraq. Then we feel like it would be pretty damn satisfying.

Hundreds of Iraqis from all walks of life and religions apparently agree. The new Iraqi government does not have a hangman on the payroll. However, an adviser to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told ABC he gets over thirty requests a day for the right to pull the lever on Mr. Hussein.

Surely, another “victim” of the December of Death. He could reportedly go any day after the Tuesday ruling. (Pic from Reuters reported on Spiegel)

Let’s just take a moment to sum up. The Decider got decidedly crushed in the 2006 elections. Then in a move that was shocking only because it seemed demonstrate a grip on reality, Bush fired Don Rumsfeld. The speculation was he was waiting for the Iraq Study Group to release their findings so he would have the political cover to redeploy troops out of Iraq. And thus, the President’s hold on reality sadly proved fleeting. When the Baker-led panel suggested withdrawal and diplomacy, Bush rejected their recommendations out of hand.
So all this change of course rhetoric coupled with all this get the job done rhetoric leads to what new course in Iraq? If you guess an increase in troop deployment and an escalation in conflict, you’d be correct.

The BBC is reporting what we already know but Bush won’t tell us until January, probably in the State of the Union Address:

While we’ll make plenty of jokes about this situation in the future, we’ll continue not to make jokes after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »