War Dénouement: Curiouser & Curiouser

Now, I give you fair warning, either you or your head must be off, and that in about half no time! Take your choice!

-- From “Alice in Wonderland”

The House has passed a second Iraq war-funding bill that President Bush has vowed to veto.

Let’s put this latest development into perspective:

The president violated a fundamental law of economics in lowering taxes while commencing to fight a major war, which happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and has taken many tens of thousands of lives. The bill for that war, which is now widely viewed as a catastrophe that has done inestimable damage to the War on Terror, is closing in on $400 billion. Much of that money has been funded outside the normal budget stream, which has enabled the White House to issue rosy but false budget forecasts while bleating that the troops will be left bereft and barefoot if funding dries up. The drumbeat for a U.S. troop withdrawal in Iraq among Iraqis is deafening and undercuts the administration's entire premise for staying there. A majority of Americans also want the U.S. out of Iraq post haste, having so noted that in a dust-up called the mid-term election. The president vetoed the first war-funding bill although it established a reasonable timetable for a withdrawal. After a come-to-Jesus meeting with Republican moderates, he has reluctantly agreed to buy back into the concept of benchmarks for the Iraqi government although they are all but unattainable this late in the game. The second bill provides funding without the timetable that the president so vehemently protested, but he will veto it anyway.

Got that?