Bush has received the Iraq Study Group’s report, er unanimous report, er unanimous, bipartisan report (yeah, that’s the ticket). Changes forthcoming? Don’t count on it. Whatever It Is, I’m Against It raises two obvious hurdles to the ISG UBPR producing the results it intends.

[Bush] says, “It is a report that brings some really very interesting proposals, and we will take every proposal seriously and we will act in a timely fashion.” Not without a time machine.

He suggests that Congress also “take this report seriously” and lectures them, not at all in the slightest bit condescendingly, that “The country, in my judgment, is tired of pure political bickering that happens in Washington, and they understand that on this important issue of war and peace, it is best for our country to work together.” And what better way to get people to work with you than to accuse them of pure political bickering.

The charge of partisanship is always levied by those who have done the most to refuse to listen to voices critical of them. George Bush has about as much credibility as a man of bipartisanship as Joe Lieberman. As far as I have seen in the media, there has been no bickering whatsoever on Iraq. (Some) Democrats have raised opposition to the war and its handling since before the start of the war. George Bush has ignored those criticisms along the way. Bush and his cohorts would have to actually respond to Democrats concerns for bickering to take place. It takes two to bicker.

Thus the only thing that Bush wants his for criticism to stop. That simply will not happen. Not while we have a mealy-mouthed, but slightly better than the status quo proposal for change in the ISG UBPR on the table. Not while we have a Democratically controlled House and Senate coming to order in less than one month. No, we will continue to object to this administration’s continue path of inaction and inadequacy. And once they decide that the Baker-Hamilton commission’s smokescreen might be worth using, they will adopt it. Americans will keep dying and Americans will stay in Iraq until the end of the Bush presidency, but it will be under the auspices of bipartisanship and unanimity, so it won’t really matter that much.

The ISG’s unanimous, bipartisan report is meaningless. It won’t stop our fellow citizens from dying and it won’t stop Bush from asking us to empty our national treasury on his quagmire yet again. The fact that Bush is showing resistance to even nominal changes in our Iraq policy is even more disheartening than the report itself.

Perhaps WIIIAI was on to something. A time machine set to January, 2009 would probably do us more good than this damned bipartisan, unanimous report.

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