Things is lookin’ up!

We get some helpful and hopeful news (c/o Bruce the Veep… who else?!) such as this item from the AP and this item from TPM Muckraker, that tell us essentially on a semi-official basis what we have known for years… this time, in the nature of “dreams with a deadline”. (Hint: it’s about Iraq.)
We have known since the heady early days when the Bushmen wanted to call the Excellent Iraq AdventureTM “Operation Iraqi Liberation”, but Karl Rove himself had to scotch that because even Americans could figure out that if you called it “O.I.L.”, it would be hard to deny that the whole thing was always about the, well, oil [and hence “Operation Iraqi Freedom” was born.] In this case, the dream is a deal of a permanent American military presence to prop up Maliki’s Iraqi sort-of-government, in exchange for preferential treatment for American investors in Iraqi oil infrastructure… or as I like to call it, finally the worthy replacement of the “Oil for Food” program: “Oil for Blood”. The deadline is roughly June, 2008, or perhaps July, just in time to be rolled out in an effort to deflate any “bounce” any Democratic nominee might get around their nominating convention (never saw that before), at which time, the announcement will finally be made that “we have been asked by the Iraqi government to draw down our force levels to around 50,000 or so”, i.e., hey, we can declare victory!
Well, glad to hear that all worked out, for everyone. Except for the American soldier and the American taxpayer. But hey, we didn’t say we wouldn’t get our hair mussed. Oh, and the war will now go on forever. But other than that, one has to say… things is lookin’ up!
And speakin’ of gettin’ our hair mussed… a guy who never goes out without a first-rate ‘do, Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi announced his early retirement from his Senate seat (roundup c/o TMV is here). Turn that frown upside down… Trent’s gonna make lots money taking advantage of a short window he has to enter the high stakes lobbying world before some awful law that that awful John McCain probably thought up kicks in which might make it harder to cash in.
I know, I know… the Senate won’t be the same without Trent, but we’ll just have to make do. As it were!
And finally, we’ll give you (also c/o Bruce!) this description of how our Secretary of State learned about the Hamas victory in Palestinian elections and how totally off guard she was taken by it… note that like the Commander in Chief, our Secretary of State is an exercise freak, and like the Commander in Chief, our Secretary of State appears to be clueless and seems to live in a bubble! Just something else to think about as the two of them host… a Middle East peace conference!!!
This has been “Things is lookin’ up!”
Update: First Trent Lott, and now that nice Mr. Hastert has announced his resignation too. Congress just won’t be the same without those two guys.