The surge, the economy, McCain, Maureen Dowd, & the like

Well the morning headlines say it all: renewed and sustain violence in Iran has torn to shreds any pretension that the surge is working in Iraq. Rather it's an affirmation of America's praetorian guard general Petaeus' statement before the pr blitz at the Senate hearings last week. Progress is reversible, and reversible it is. US trained Iraqi troops bolted, turned tail, and ran like a bat out of hell in Sadr City. Herr Bush's Iraqi clients are no match for organised resistance, Shia or Sunni. They can claim no loyalty from a population who view these troops as puppets of the occupying power[s]. On the economic front, the news is worse. Britain's pm Brown is in Washington to confer with Herr Bush. It looks as though the UK will extend the government's arm towards nationalisating weaker banks. This solution is not acceptable in the land of winken, blinken, and nod or the US, but there can be not doubt that the federal government through the Fed will have to intervene in free markets to rein in cowboy economics, to save the banks! McCain's pitch to the hoi polloi for a summer free of gasoline taxes is just that--playing to the gallery; it's cheap and an obvious device to win him votes. It won't. What about the rising cost of food, tub boat admiral McCain? What about rising rents, foreclosures, and the growing impoverishment of Americans, old dear? Nary a word, and this fool also proclaims in the same breath, he wants Herr Bush's tax breaks for the rich to become permanent by an act of Congress. Yes, he's a lackey of the plutocracy and rotting corpse of the class that pulls Herr Bush's strings. He ain't worth a vote! Maureen Dowd has gotten on to her hobby horse denouncing her Barak Obama for his 'elitist' remarks. Really, if anyone's an elitist, it's Mme. Dowd who shots from the hip and takes ombrage when her slip is showing. Put some powder on a shiny red nose, old darling, you need it.