State of Collusion

You say delusion, I say collusion. Like a certain favorite tv show of mine, they are back and they have a plan.

State of Delusion - New York Times: "One answer is to pretend that the bad stuff never happened. The Medicare drug benefit is Mr. Bush's largest domestic initiative to date. It's also a disaster: at enormous cost, the administration has managed to make millions of elderly Americans worse off. So drugs went unmentioned in the State of the Union.

Another answer is to rely on evasive language. In Iraq, said Mr. Bush, we've 'changed our approach to reconstruction.'

In fact, reconstruction has failed. Almost three years after the war began, oil production is well below prewar levels, Baghdad is getting only an average of 3.2 hours of electricity a day, and more than 60 percent of water and sanitation projects have been canceled.

So now, having squandered billions in Iraqi oil revenue as well as U.S. taxpayer dollars, we've told the Iraqis that from now on it's their problem. America's would-be Marshall Plan in Iraq, reports The Los Angeles Times, 'is drawing to a close this year with much of its promise unmet and no plans to extend its funding.' I guess you can call that a change in approach.

There's a common theme underlying the botched reconstruction of Iraq, the botched response to Katrina (which Mr. Bush never mentioned), the botched drug program, and the nonexistent energy program."

Oh there's a theme alright. Might even be the same plan as the tv show, just not as smoothly executed.

And Karl Rove is definitely no Number Six.

Tags: Paul Krugman, State of the Union, Battlestar Galactica