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The remnants of Bush’s remaining Iraq policy are now becoming clear: “six more months,” “six more months” until he’s out of office and can pass this unmitigated fiasco to some other sucker. Only six more months until things REALLY get better..just a few more months until we can DRAW DOWN those troops! Draw them down, of course, back to their original levels.

We hear from Petraus that Iraq is “improving”–tell that to the grieving relatives of the 250+ people mowed down by a truck bomb in August. And while we’re on the subject of Iraqis, what do THEY think about the success of the “surge” and the American presence generally?

Funny you should ask. ABC News did, in one of its recent polls (PDF). Iraqis themselves, who aren’t subject to the spoonfeeding of biased propaganda the military is feeding American news outlets, seem to think that there hasn’t been much if any improvement at all. When asked how things were since the surge, 31% said worse for their local area than before the surge and 45% said the same; when asked about Iraq as a whole, 61% said things had gotten worse overall. Other tidbits: 63% believe the US invasion was “wrong”, 47% believe coalition forces should leave immediately, and 57% believe attacks on US forces are acceptable!

Petraus points to a decrease in violence in Baghdad, without pointing out that most neighborhoods have already been ethnically cleansed, and that tens of thousands of people have had to flee their homes and even the country. The exodus of Iraq’s intellectuals and elites bodes particularly poorly for those who remain.

Iraq is a victim of failure to find a political solution, not a military one. Bush sent in the troops just barely knowing the difference between a Shiite and a Sunni, without any plan for a reconstruction that would cause reconciliation between the various ethnic factions. We now have the incompetent boob Al-Maliki leading a puppet Parliament to nowhere, relying on the fact that US forces are guaranteed to stick around in the face of a feckless Congress. With the US military in their pockets, the Iraqi government can feel free to continue doing what it does best–engage in petty squabbling, bitter rivalries, and otherwise do everything except to serve their countrymen. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson these people are not.

A political failure will not be cured by a military surge or presence of any time or magnitude. Our presence there is serving only to extend the process of non-reconciliation.

Pull the troops out, seal the borders, let the Iraqis have the civil war they seem bent on having in the absence of the American crutch, and let them murder each other into submission until they get tired of it and and either exhaust themselves or get their act together with a government and police force that work. It is horrible and barbaric, but nothing could be more horrible than this gross miscarriage of a war that has now dragged on longer than our involvement in World War II.

Time for it to end, already.

Lou Dobbs says exactly what has been on my mind over the attorney general flap the last few days:

‘Showdown’ really a battle of partisan buffoons

NEW YORK (CNN) — An incompetent attorney general, who says he wasn’t fully aware that nearly 10 percent of the U.S. attorneys who work for him throughout the country were being fired and permitted the 110,000-person Justice Department that he leads to give inaccurate information at best, or simply lie about it at worst, to the Congress and the American people, has the full confidence of the president who’s lost the confidence of most people.

And this is what passes for a big-time, dramatic, historic constitutional crisis in 21st century America? You’ve got to be kidding. This is the most partisan, politically driven administration in history, and we’re all supposed to be surprised by its conduct and motivation in the firing of these U.S. attorneys? Please.

Now the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law has voted to approve subpoenas that would force chief policy adviser Karl Rove, former White House counsel Harriet Miers and other top presidential aides to testify publicly and under oath about their involvement in the firings.

Guess what? That little ol’ subcommittee can’t do much of anything to force executive branch employees to testify without the help of the very man and department at the center of this altogether silly and over-baked controversy. That’s right; Attorney General Alberto Gonzales or one of his U.S. attorneys would have to enforce any subpoenas refused by any of the president’s aides.

This is the same Democratic-controlled Congress that millions of voters thought would be so vastly different from the last gaggle of partisan buffoons in the Republican-led 109th Congress. With almost 30,000 young Americans killed or wounded in Iraq, with a half-trillion dollars spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, this Congress can do no better than publicly fulminate in futility and bray endlessly without effect on the course and conduct of the war in Iraq. Is there no sense of proportion and higher purpose anywhere in Washington?

While this president’s so-called free trade policies continue to bleed the nation and the economy of millions of jobs and add to a $5 trillion mountain of trade debt, and while our public schools continue to fail a generation of young Americans, this Congress chooses to invest its energy and time in pure partisan blather and cheap political theatrics.

Is there not one decent, honest man or woman in either the House of Representatives or the Senate, in either party’s leadership, who possesses the courage and the honesty to say, “Enough. The people who elected us deserve better”? So far the answer is no. Is there really any wonder that public opinion polls demonstrate that the president and this Congress share equally low approval ratings in poll after poll?

The White House is behaving with utter contempt for Congress and Congress is acting without respect or regard for this president. Could it be that, at long last, they’re both right?

In the last couple of months, the largest credit card issuers like Citigroup have suddenly reversed themselves on some of their most egregious fees and policies, and have practically apologized to the consumer for them. These fees had really pushed the limits and made the lives of already debt-burdened customers a living hell. Here are some examples of the issuers’ recent activities:

–”two cycle billing” (cancelled by Chase): a practice where if you don’t pay your bill in full, not only are you charged a sharply higher interest rate on future purchases, but they also reach one month in the past and charge higher interest on those purchases too.

–”universal default” (cancelled by Citigroup): a practice whereby they check your credit report every month, and hike up your credit card interest rate if you are late on ANY bill (like your car payment or electricity)!

–”over-limit fees” (partially cancelled by Chase): instead of declining purchases when they exceed a credit limit, they allow the purchase and then slap a $40 fee every month your balance remains over the limit. Chase will now charge the fee only three times, after news surfaced of a man with a $3200 balance being slapped with the fee 47 times.

–Citigroup also rejected its terms and conditions that stated they could change your interest rate and fees “at any time for any reason.”

What accounts for the sudden largesse? Did these companies see the light or get visited by the ghost of Christmas?

Not a chance. They were about to be hauled in before Congress to account for their outrageous fees, and cancelled them just before they were required to testify. That way they could say “we don’t do that anymore.”

It’s amazing what a Democratic-controlled Congress can do for your pocketbook. Now I hope Congress isn’t fooled by these companies playing possum (you know they’ll start charging these ridiculous fees the moment they think they can get away with it again). I’m not usually much in favor of overt marketplace regulation, but there is a clear failure in the marketplace when these companies can get away with so egregiously abusing people who are already drowning in debt. As such, the Citigroups of the world deserve every bit of onerous regulation that Congress can muster.