As the late, great Kurt Vonnegut would say.

April 16, 2007 Washington - In the great showdown between the White House and congressional Democrats over war funding, it may be all over but the shouting.
Key Democrats - such as Senate Armed Services chair Carl Levin (D) of Michigan - have already made clear that President Bush will get his $100 billion-plus to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this year.

Well, Senator Salazar, here is the result of your gutless approach to ending the carnage in Iraq attributable to this administration's heartless and idiotic policies, which you have consistently supported when push comes to shove. Congratulations, we have lost the opportunity to begin to reign in our rogue president. It will now be a year, and how much more slaughter, before we have another opportunity. I am sick and tired of hearing about needing to "support the troups", as if that is accomplished by leaving them hanging out to dry in a hopeless situation.

Last night PBS began its 11-part series on the disaster we have created in the Middle East, and how we got there. What was clear from last night's segment is that Bush et al have followed to the letter the script that Bin Laden wrote back in the late '90's, his master plan to draw the US into a war on the ground in Afghanistan and/or Iraq, and thereby to bleed us-- economically, politically, spritually, and even militarily. The longer we stay there, the better it is for Al Qaeda, which was almost defunct before Bush launched the invasion of Iraq.

The failure of the US Congress to legislate an end, or at least the beginning of the end, of our military involvement in Iraq, will prove to be the last chance we had to rescue ourselves from the fate that Bin Laden has been planning for us for at least two decades.

Good night, and good luck.