As Expected...

{Note: See today's main post, below, before the art auction ends!}

Once again playing this sick 9/11 season for international and national pickup sticks, we this past week have enjoyed

the inevitable Osama Bin Laden video surfacing (the only deviation from previous patterns this time being the reaction from some corners of the Muslim community, understandably weary and wary of this endless power dance orchestrated betwixt the extremists Bin Laden and Bush),

fueling the seasonal 'let's re-sell this war, dammit!' push from Bush (this fall significantly sans prior cronies Rumsfeld, Rove and Gonzales), requiring he once again leave the US to get the wind up in his own sails to make the Stuck & Spin spin spin.

As expected, in this week's Saturday 'radio talk' Bush "recorded before the flight, Bush recounted his Labor Day trip to Iraq's Anbar Province to visit U.S. troops and 'see with my own eyes the remarkable changes they are making possible'."

Ah, yes, with his own eyes -- via the remote, heavily fortified mobile bubble trip Bush made to a remote, heavily fortified non-mobile bubble in part of Iraq. Yes, he of course saw what he wanted/was intended to see, and nothing less or else or more than that.

"The level of violence is down. Local governments are meeting again. Young Sunnis are joining the police and army. And normal life is returning," the president said.

Normal life is returning? Wha -- ??

No electricity, water, or security since 2003. 'Normal life' that makes today's 'normal life' in New Orleans (only plunged into a Third World status since August 2005) seem, uh, more 'normal.' 'Normal life' in which over 1500 Iraqis are killed every month, instead of the over 2000 per month last year at this time, or earlier this spring.

Also 'normal' is the fact that the same completely-wrong experts who got us collectively into this international clusterfuck tarbaby "will warn Congress on Monday that making any significant changes to the current war strategy will jeopardize the limited security and political progress made so far," so, like, be ready for that, too. It's 'normal' to still take the word, five years into this shitstorm, to lend any measure of competency, confidence or credibility to these 'experts.'

Bush to Rice in Australia: "So, you gonna be my girl?" -- U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice showing Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov the actual size of her President's penis; could that be the real reason we're at endless war, and Bush can't "pull out"?

I mean, it's also 'normal' that amid this ongoing horrorshow, the sports metaphors still prevail: U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and General David Petraeus are still wielding those comfy homilies (Petraeus: "We are, in short, a long way from the goal line, but we do have the ball and we are driving down the field") -- like we always wanted the mentality of our high school sports coaches handling volatile foreign policies and waging unnecessary wars we cannot "pull out of" (an off-field jock metaphor for in-car sex).

Thankfully, we still have Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in "our court" (much as all Bush Administration officials continue to evade any day "in court"), though Condi of late hasn't even been able to play old-fashioned Cold War scrimmage games with any style, grace or results. Dodgeball fodder!

The biggest news story to emerge from Bush's trip to Australia is not, of course, reported on former Aussie Rupert Murdoch's war-mongering Fox News channel: Bush had the Australians practically rolling on the floor with his stupid antics, referring to "APEC as OPEC, and to the Australian prime minister's visit to 'Austrian' troops in Iraq."

Now, that's American diplomacy at work.

Have a great Sunday...