The Showboat Express came pulling into DC last Tuesday so John McCain could cast his vote against the Democrats silly measure while, as David Espos (AP) reported, claiming, ""we are starting to turn things around". Oh really, Showboat?
Karin Brulliard and Robin Wright (Washington Post) last Thursday:
Iraqi insurgents are increasingly hitting Baghdad's fortresslike Green Zone with rockets and mortar shells, officials said Wednesday.
Insurgents have struck inside the Green Zone, which includes the U.S. Embassy, on six of the past seven days, once with deadly consequences.
Kristin Roberts (Reuters) last Friday:
A U.S. general on Friday said suicide attacks and car bombings soared 30 percent since the start of a security crackdown in Iraq last month, and that insurgents had used a child in a second suicide attack last week.
Reuters today:
Violence in Iraq killed 1,861 civilians in March, a 13 percent increase from the previous month and despite a major security crackdown in Baghdad, Iraqi government tallies showed on Sunday.
Steven R. Hurst (AP) today:
The U.S. military death toll in March, the first full month of the security crackdown, was nearly twice that of the Iraqi army, which American and Iraqi officials say is taking the leading role in the latest attempt to curb violence in the capital, surrounding cities and Anbar province, according to figures compiled on Saturday.
The Associated Press count of U.S. military deaths for the month was 81, including a soldier who died from non-combat causes Friday. Figures compiled from officials in the Iraqi ministries of Defense, Health and Interior showed the Iraqi military toll was 44. The Iraqi figures showed that 165 Iraqi police were killed in March. Many of the police serve in paramilitary units.
According to the AP count 3,246 U.S. service members have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003.
Leila Fadel (McClatchy Newspapers) Thursday:
The death toll throughout Iraq was more than 123, an indication that despite initial signs of a downturn, violence is returning to previous levels throughout the country.
[. . .]
In recent weeks, the U.S. military and Iraqi officials have said marketplaces are safer because they've been cordoned off from vehicles, but Thursday's attack - at least the fifth attempt on the shopping district and the worst so far - showed the limitation of those measures.
Bushra Juhi (AP) yesterday:
The Iraqi Interior Ministry on Saturday raised the death toll in last week's suicide truck bombing against a Shiite market in Tal Afar to 152, which would make it the deadliest single strike since the war started four years ago.
A spokesman for the Shiite-dominated ministry, Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, said the number nearly doubled from previous estimates after more bodies were pulled from the rubble in the northwestern city.
What is sadly obvious to everyone but John McCain is called "reality."
VOTE CRAZY JOHN IN '08!
Are you tired of reality? Life getting you down? It doesn't have to and I have the answer. Vote for me, Crazy John, to be your next president and you'll have no more worries.
I'm not saying that I'll end the war.
I won't.
But what I will do is say it's going better, say a corner is turned. And, as your president, I'll teach you to stop worrying about reality as well. All common sense must go!
We are a country of self-made men and women. We can self-make our reality too.
All it takes is for you to tell yourself, "It's getting better."
Ignore news from the world, that's more time you can spend watching Rupert Murdoch's high art for the masses, American Idol.
So in November 2008, Go Insane, Vote McCain!
[Illustration from Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts. In full at the top, cropped at the bottom.]