I was thinking about Mr Bu$h’s latest schmaedrae strategy slogan for blaming someone else for his most recent ego-failure. “Return on Success” can be interpreted several different ways, including return as a financial profit on investment.

That leads to a very cynical interpretation: troops have been invested to secure Iraq’s oil, and those returning are the (net) profit, after operating expenditures. Alternatively, those troops could be considered returns sent back to the factory for repair and refurbishment so they can be sold again. Many manufacturers do this. Ever try to but a new alternator for your car? You have to go the manufacturer (Army training system) to get brand new equipment.

Yes, I know – gruesome.

I was watching the History Channel last night as they spent an hour discussing the last stand of King Leonidas and his band of 300 Spartans. (Thank G_d they didn’t have VD Hanson on there or we would have been subjected to an interpretation of Thermopylae as an allegory for Iraq!)

In discussing the Spartan system of raising males to be soldiers one historian noted boys are taken from their homes at seven and raised in dormitories to be soldiers. When a boy first goes to war at age 18 his mother greets him and hails her son as a soldier, with the phrase reported by the Roman writer Plutarch in a book about Spartan women.

First, where and when does the quote first appear? That part is easy. Typically translated as, "Another woman handed her son his shield, and exhorted him: 'Son, either with this or on this,'" the quote is found in the writings of the Roman writer Plutarch--specifically, in his collection of 78 morals, tales, and short stories (of which more than half survive) called the Moralia, in a section called Sayings of Spartan Women.

This saying has been understood for 2,000 years as “Victory or Death!” We in the West are inheritors of the Athenian tradition, which emphasizes thought, logic, and study of the “liberal arts” rather than the Spartan lifestyle, which is actually rather grim although our brethren of the never-right went berserk over the recent “300” film. Perhaps they were enthusiastic about the film because they have never had to actually soldier themselves. Or, perhaps there were deeper motives as many writers have speculated. Digby pointed out something yesterday when it was made public that the house Ms Rice, our Secretary of State, alleged Russian expert, and concert pianist, lives in is co-owned with another lady.

It's become clear in the last few years that right wingers are psychologically unfit to lead the nation. Vast numbers of them are "conservative" not due to philosophy but to cover up for serious personal issues with sexuality, masculinity, oedipal complexes and worse. In fact, it's so pervasive that one must now assume that conservative political leaders are driven by a complicated desire to compensate for psychological problems rather than the usual political mix of ambition, ego and drive to power. There are just too many examples of disturbed, neurotic, secretive GOP hypocrites out there. It's a feature not a bug.

Now, after six and one-half years of observing the mind-numbing evil of the Bu$h malAdministration I am incapable of ever attributing anything good, decent, moral or honorable to any of their works or initiatives. So, jut a little mindplay, of course, but can “Return on Success” be interpreted as “with your shield or on it”?

Can today’s Republicans truly believe that soldiers in Iraq are expected to win (steal the oil) or die in place? After all, the deaths of 100,000 American soldiers would be a “small price” to pay for all that oil, wouldn’t it?