Remember late last year when Amurka was eagerly awaiting dubya's announcement of his New Way Forward in Iraq? There was a lot of discussion amongst the talking heads in the media over just what the preznit would decide to do. Would he follow the advice of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group Report and start working with Iraq's neighbors in figuring a way out of Iraq, or would he instead follow LBJ's lead and escalate conflict in the face of disaster?

Of course the entire left wing of the blogosphere knew what dubya was going to do the moment we heard the idea for The Surge being tossed around. It was a classic example of how anytime this preznit goes into one of his highly-hyped "thinking" periods where he pretends to be agonizing over a decision, you can bet your ass he's actually waiting for the right-wing-noise-machine to sell his decision to the rubes before-hand. It's smoothly orchestrated to make sure all his "tough decisions" are met with applause. This particular "tough decision" made sure the first thing that happened on the Dem's newly-won watch in Congress was an increase in troop levels, and it set the stage for pushing his war off on the next president.

I remember how all the supporters of The Surge were pounding on us lefties for using the word escalation to describe the strategy, saying we were using it deliberately to invoke images of Vietnam when it was plain to see that The Surge was not an escalation because The Surge was by definition temporary, lasting a few months at most, whereas escalations are more long-term ... blah blah blah ... there's no way this is anything like Vietnam.

Fast forward to this past week. Despite the ejaculatory sound of the name, The Surge has actually been rather slow in the execution, having only just been completed two weeks ago. (That's right. The same people who have been telling us for years that our Iraqi adventures are not placing an inordinate strain on our military are also telling us that it's perfectly normal for our military to take six months to put 20,000 troops in country.) And of course since The Surge is only now at full strength, there's just no way we can pass any judgement whatsoever on it any time soon. And you probably shouldn't try looking for any sign of a gradual decrease in violence during the six-month troop buildup either. No sir, the clock starts now, and we won't have any idea whether The Surge is actually working for months. So much for temporary.

Meanwhile every piece of Do-Something-About-Iraq legislation the Dems try to bring to a vote is being filibustered in the Senate by the Republicans. Is it even worth mentioning how hypocritical the Republicans are being on this? Remember how they were threatening the "nuclear option" of eliminating filibusters because the Dems were using them and it threatened to destroy our constitutional form of government? They really don't seem to care if they look hypocritical or just plain foolish. Their only goal now is protecting the preznit by running out the clock. And honestly, I think it's going to work. They can postpone even discussing the inevitable failure of The Surge for another six months and then spend a few months arguing what to do about it. Dubya will be back in Crawford rewriting history and badmouthing his successor before we actually start pulling troops out in any real numbers, certainly before we get back to pre-Surge levels. Sigh.