George W. Bizarro speaks

I wrote about GWB's recent press conference where, in typically incoherent way, GWB revealed that America was in Iraq forever. While perhaps not so bizarre as the "we've never been 'stay the course'" claim, there many very bizarre aspects to this presser and another of his group hugs with conservative journalists earlier this week.

Dan Froomkin points us to:

"Absolutely, we're winning," Bush said. "As a matter of fact, my view is the only way we lose in Iraq is if we leave before the job is done."

With the body counts soaring, the country descending deeper into civil war and the central government consistently unable to assert itself, how can he call this winning?

The answer: It's becoming increasingly clear that Bush sees the war in Iraq in very simple terms. As he himself said, he believes that the only way to lose is to leave. Therefore anything else is winning -- anything else at all.

Even if no progress is being made -- even if things are getting worse, rather than better -- simply staying is winning.

So we're winning.

Barbara O'Brien at Mahablog shares:

The only defeat is leaving. As long as we’re still there, we’re winning. Got that?

And I really like the part about “If we leave, they will follow us here.” I do remember jokes we told back in the day — If we pull out of Vietnam, the Vietnamese navy will attack Los Angeles. Nobody believed that, of course; it was just a way to underline how absurd the war was.

But does anyone really believe “if we leave, they will follow us here”? Why would that be true? We don’t exactly have al Qaeda pinned down over there.

I mean, we weren’t in Iraq on September 11, were we?

Sorry; I couldn’t resist.

From the transcript of that by-invitation-only meeting, we have GWB trotting out this old canard.

I believe when you get attacked and somebody declares war on you, you fight back. And that’s what we’re doing.

I'm just trying to remember when it was exactly that Iraq attacked the U.S. I mean... this is just nuts!

And how about this?

And you talk to — admittedly, my focus groups are not broad, but people always say to me, thank you for protecting us.

Do you think Bubble-Boy sneaked out? Focus groups not broad? That sounds almost like... something that someone in the reality-based community might say!