Six-Year Cakewalk

I just want to expand on how insane and radical a statement Bush made in his press conference today. Atrios has highlighted the remark and what it means (Friedmans in his vernacular are a time frame of "about six months," so named because the glorious Thomas Friedman has said "we have about six months to get it right in Iraq" about seven times):

Bush (approximate transcript, too lazy to rewind the Tivo):

As long as I am president we are not leaving Iraq.

For those keeping score, that's another 5 more Friedmans at least. Which means Bush doesn't believe there's any way that his "plan" (whatever the hell that is) will "succeed" in under two and a half years.

And furthermore it means that the strategy for victory in Iraq included a military campaign of at least six years. That would make it the longest war in American history save for Vietnam. If the casualty rate remained the same, it would also involve the deaths of 5,000 American soldiers and the wounding of about 35,000.

This was the war known as the "cakewalk."

In addition, the President got so angry at having to be called for account on Iraq today, that in his fulminating and perorating (he actually tried to use that word and fumbled it badly) he lost the script and stumbled into the central fallacy about the Iraq policy:

I was listening to Numbnutz's presser and, in the middle of an off-kilter rampage about the "freedom agenda for the Middle East" and Iraq, Bush screamed (literally), "They killed 3,000 of our citizens!"

And just then, a reporter yelled out, "What did Iraq have to do with the 9-11 attack?" Bush said, "What?"

The reporter repeated the question and Bush yelled (again, literally), "Nothing!" And then he went on a rambling, insane rant about the Middle East.

We're clearly so far through the looking glass that the leader of the free world can completely contradict himself and have no trouble with it. He can give a long explanation of why we attacked Iraq, i.e. because of 9/11, and then boldly state that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, and have no problem with that internal logic.

UPDATE: Bush also tried to slice the salami pretty thin when he said, "Nobody's ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attacks." Josh Marshall points out that the Administration certainly played up the (fictional) idea that Saddam played a role, and sought to connect Iraq and 9/11 all the time (and still do to this guy until they get called on their shit).