More Patience, Sacrifice And Courage Required; Political Infighting To Blame

The twice-unelected president-impersonator debased yet another national holiday by lying through his teeth to yet another carefully screened and pathetically small crowd of brain-damaged supporters, as Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times reports:

Bush Evokes Revolutionary War to Bolster the U.S. Cause in Iraq

Reading aloud from an article about the first Fourth of July celebration, in Philadelphia in 1777, and its “grand exhibition of fireworks,” Mr. Bush told the audience of Air National Guard members and their families at the base here, “Our first Independence Day celebration took place in a midst of a war — a bloody and difficult struggle that would not end for six more years before America finally secured her freedom.”

Addressing National Guard members with the 167th Airlift Wing who were gathered in a cavernous airplane hangar here, he said, “Like those early patriots, you’re fighting a new and unprecedented war — pledging your lives and honor to defend our freedom and way of life.”

And that's the big lie, isn't it? Our soldiers in Iraq are not fighting to defend our freedom! They're fighting to deny others the freedom we wish we still had!

But none of this matters in the bizarre world of spin and fantasy which the White House reality makers have created for us ever since the most absurd day in history. And

Mr. Bush spent 20 minutes in the hangar, which dwarfed the crowd, shaking hands and talking with a long line of Guard members who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan and their families. He then lifted off for what his spokesman, Scott Stanzel, said would be a Fourth of July celebration at the White House that would double as a celebration of his 61st birthday this Friday.

Mr. Stanzel said Mr. Bush’s daughters and parents and his wife, Laura, would attend.

As Mr. Bush said of Mrs. Bush, “Laura sends her love — she would be with me, but I told her to fire up the grill.”

Oh yes! Fire up the grill, indeed! None of this will matter if we have a proper barbecue!

Deb Riechmann of the Associated Press has a few more details:

Bush salutes military, warns of 'more sacrifice'

The president said victory in Iraq would require "more patience, more courage and more sacrifice."

"If we were to quit Iraq before the job is done, the terrorists we are fighting would not declare victory and lay down their arms. They would follow us here," Bush told a crowd of about 1,000 people gathered at a West Virginia Air National Guard maintenance hangar.

It doesn't matter that this is not true, either. It doesn't even matter that it's ludicrous!

Here: I'll show you what does matter:

The Iraqi Parliament isn't getting any closer to signing their national resources away to foreign companies, and if they don't get that done by September, it will reflect badly on the democracy we have created there, so it's a good thing we can blame the recalcitrance on "political infighting" among the ungrateful wretches!

Or at least that's the way Tina Susman of the Los Angeles Times spins it:

Political infighting blocks action on oil bill in Iraq

Political infighting blocked lawmakers from opening debate yesterday on legislation to oversee the oil industry as Iraqi and U.S. leaders called for reconciliation among Iraq's feuding factions.

An influential group of Sunni Muslim clerics, the Association of Muslim Scholars, joined the fray surrounding the oil bill yesterday by issuing a religious edict, forbidding legislators from voting for it.

"Whoever does so will be exposed to God's wrath and will have committed the crime of collaboration with the enemy," said a statement from the group, a fierce opponent of the U.S. occupation.

The developments were an ominous sign for U.S. and Iraqi leaders, who have counted on passage of the legislation to show evidence of political progress before parliament starts a monthlong break July 31. U.S. officials must give Congress a progress report on Iraq in September, leaving little time for the measure to win approval.

Did you notice that mainstream reporters can now use the term "occupation" without quotes? How quickly we lose our sense of outrage! We were once liberators, but that didn't work out too well, especially in the wake of the death squads we established, so now we have an occupation. And so on.

How can anybody still pretend that the "global war on terror" is not all about oil?

... other than Dick Cheney, I mean?