While fumbling around looking for some information I happened upon a citation to an article I wrote last year. Looking back at that article made me realize that our views and opinions about life in the Age of Bu$h can change change and evolve. I’m not thinking about major chasm- creating change, but rather shaded and nuanced views of events.

It’s a good thing to read the piece because it shows how perceptions can change. I’m not talking about the wide, overarching view of George Bu$h and his little band of fascists as being less malign than we believe them to be; there’s ample evidence to convince all but the blind drunk and stupidity-addicted party faithful that the evil these people have wrought will take decades to repair.

But back then we actually saw some indication of sanity in the perceptions of people who believed George Bu$h knew the jig was up in October 2006 and the daily virulent barrages against Democrats were a sign of that understanding, rather than the fact that he was just engaging in the sort of electoral politics he preferred.

Mr Bu$h is in some ways a classic exemplar of the Republican Party of the times: vicious, mendacious, unprincipled, guided by no plan more complicated than self-aggrandizement and grabbing as much booty as possible. The voters seemed to have come to that realization last year, and seemed to have given the Democrats a chance, which they’re muffing, because they need a super majority of around 82 Senators and 400 Congressmen to get anything meaningful accomplished. Democracy may be messy, but the author of that phrase never dreamed that a nation riven asunder would try to direct the affairs of other nations as well as their own.

Was Ms Rice’s statement that the Iraqis have “limited time” to get their asses in gear and create a functional national government based on something-or-other right? Undoubtedly, but I don’t think the Iraqis are suited to voluntary coalition at this time. The tribal and sectarian differences are too great. Saddam Hussein was an Iraqi, and he needed a massive support network of suppression to keep a lid on it all. We’re trying to do the same with less than a fifth of the military might he had, and we’re foreign occupiers as well.

Recent talk from “military leaders” indicate they have believe there is a limited time span in which to inflict enough military damage to the insurgents, Ba’thists, Iraqi Army professional leaders, and yes, even al Qaeda, who are most likely nowhere near as numerous as the Bu$h malAdministration is currently pretending they are.

That’s a non-starter – a throw-away line created to keep the 70% of Americans who have had enough quiet. I’ve said before that George Bu$h is psychologically incapable of accepting a reduction of forces in Iraq. He would view that as an assault on his ego, and the fantasies of “flypaper military action” will keep us in Iraq in force after his departure in January 2009, just in case he actually goes.

Last October when Andrew North, the Welshman, and I felt we saw a finite end to the Iraqi millstone of lost treasure we were right in a general sense, but it’s inconceivable that the Iraqis will get their show on the road on our timeline. Back then we didn’t understand the full details of the confiscatory oil laws, although the Iraqis did, and I wouldn’t be surprised if quite a bit of the resistance is over the theft as well as the brutal occupation. That resistance will continue until every last American is out of the country, at which point the eviction of American oil companies will commence..

With fuller understanding now, and the acceptance of the bitter pill of the Democratic Party’s current feckless state, I can see we have years of bitter blogging about the leech of Iraq ahead of us.