Insanity

George Bush is nuts and the general staff has no testicles. Is that clear enough for you, Skipper?

Let's start with the castrati first. From The Associated Press:

The U.S. military is weighing new directions in Iraq, including an even bigger troop buildup if President Bush thinks his "surge" strategy needs a further boost, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Monday.

Marine Gen. Peter Pace revealed that he and the chiefs of the Army, Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force are developing their own assessment of the situation in Iraq, to be presented to Bush in September. That will be separate from the highly anticipated report to Congress that month by Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander for Iraq.

The Joint Chiefs are considering a range of actions, including another troop buildup, Pace said without making any predictions. He called it prudent planning to enable the services to be ready for Bush's decision.

NOW, LET'S TURN to the Crazy Guy in Chief as he slips into the Full Queeg and begins the search for his missing strawberries:

And Bush, asked how he can continue to prosecute a war which has lost the support of a majority of the American people said he will retire – at the end of next year – comfortable that he has hewed to “principle."

“The question now is, do we pull back and allow the polls, allow the Gallup Poll or whatever, to determine the fate of our country?’’ Bush said. “Sometimes, you just have to make the decisions based upon what you think is right…. My most important job is to help secure this country."

“Everybody wants to be loved," said Bush, leaning into the new podium of a renovated West Wing press briefing room getting its debut press conference. “Sometimes the decisions you make and the consequences don’t allow you to be loved… (When he retires) I will be able to look in the mirror and say I made decisions based on principle, not politics."

I KNOW THEY'RE WORRIED about maybe getting Vittered, but how many semi loads of Get a Clue does the Stay the Course crowd in Congress need to have dumped upon it before the right honorable Members and Sinators finally provide a veto-proof margin in favor of putting a stop to this insane expeditionary war in Iraq? That the notoriously conservative Pittsburgh Tribune-Review has called President Bush's plan to "stay the course" a "prescription for American suicide" ought to have been, even for the densest GOP lawmaker, a clock radio turned up to 11.

For pity's sake, the newspaper even went so far as to question Bush's sanity.

Meanwhile, the AP takes us back to the high pitched in the High Command:

The military must "be prepared for whatever it's going to look like two months from now," Pace said in an interview with two reporters traveling with him to Iraq from Washington.

"That way, if we need to plus up or come down" in numbers of troops in Iraq, the details will have been studied, he said.

Pace, on his first visit since U.S. commanders accelerated combat operations in mid-June, said another option under consideration is maintaining current troop levels beyond September.

There are now about 158,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, reflecting a boost of about 30,000 to carry out the new strategy Bush announced in January. The plan is focused on providing better security for Iraqis in Baghdad, but the intended effect—political reconciliation between Sunnis and Shiites—has yet to be achieved, and many in Congress are clamoring to begin withdrawing troops soon.

Pace said the administration must consider not only what works best on the battlefield but also the growing stress of more than four years of war on American troops and their families.

He repeatedly mentioned his concern about soldiers and Marines doing multiple tours of duty and the decision in January to extend soldiers' Iraq deployments by three months, to 15 months.

WHAT? Planning for an even bigger "surge" while fretting about how stressed our troops and their families might be?

That's nuts. Actually, no. The President and his True Believers are nuts, but the joint chiefs merely lost theirs somewhere along the road to ruin.

And our valiant Hessian military is going to pay the price so suburban America might not trouble its unserious mind with unpleasant things.