The Car Wreck That Is Baghdad

Like a car crash victim in a coma, the city shut down. Life was put on hold. Baghdad's traumatized residents avoided public places, locking their doors and emptying the streets after dark. (Reuters).

Girdles, Peaches & the Surge Twins

It’s obvious that the Surge is like those girdles the secretaries wear on the vintage advertising show, "Mad Men." It just pushes the fat around, giving a momentary illusion of flatness. But once Peaches Petraeus, as he was known growing up in Cornwall-on-Hudson, takes the girdle off, the center will not hold. (Maureen Dowd in today's NYT).

And ...

The Surge Twins seemed competent and more realistic than some of their misbegotten predecessors, but just too late to do any good. They’re like two veteran pilots trying to crash land the plane.

An Egyptian View of the Iraq Quagmire

"If the U.S. leaves Iraq it will fall under Iranian influence. The current situation as well is in Iran's favor, and one of the report's aims is to blame Iran for the U.S. troubles," [Mustafa El-Labbad, an Egyptian analyst and Iran expert,] said. "It is like a boxing fight with the two boxers caught in a clinch. The United States is unable to win by a knockout, and it is not scoring any points either." (Reuters).

McCain, a Political Cat That's Off Balance

Mr. McCain is stuck on the bridge of a sinking policy with W. and Dick Cheney, who showed again this week that there is no bottom to his lunacy. The senator supported a war that didn’t need to be fought and is a cheerleader for a surge that won’t work. It has left Mr. McCain, an Arizona Republican, once the most spontaneous of campaigners, off balance. He’s like a cat without its whiskers. (Maureen Dowd in The NYT).

Mr. President, Welcome to Third Grade

Watching the administration try to get its story straight about Iran’s role in Iraq last week was like watching third graders try to sidestep blame for misbehaving while the substitute teacher was on a bathroom break. (Frank Rich in The NYT. Times Select access required).

Just What We Need: A Prussian Admirer

His [Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates's] favorite quotation from history, he told reporters traveling with him this week for meetings with allies and commanders in Europe and the Middle East, is from Frederick the Great, the 18th century Prussian monarch and gifted musician: “Negotiations without arms are like music books without instruments.” Or, put another way, it takes military power to create the leverage necessary to make negotiations fruitful. (Military Memo, New York Times).

The View From the Roof: Praying for Deliverance

[On the Iraq Study Group report and the Bush perspective]

There were enough good ideas, anodyne suggestions and blurry recommendations (blurriness is not always bad in foreign affairs -- confusion can buy time!) that I thought the administration would see it as a life raft. Instead they pushed it away. Like the old woman in the flood who took to the roof and implored God to send a boat to save her. A hunk of wood floated by as she prayed with fervor. A busted wooden door floated by as the waters rose and she doubled her prayers. Finally she cried "God, I asked you to save me and you didn't send a boat!" And the voice of God answered: "I sent you a hunk of wood and a door!" We don't always recognize deliverance when it arrives. ( Peggy Noonan in The Wall Street Journal).

And on This Slide ...

Watching George Bush’s televised speech last week, when he revealed what he called “the main elements” of his plan to rescue Iraq, was like watching a slightly nervous lieutenant colonel read PowerPoint slides. (The New Yorker).

Surging to the Left, Surging to the Right

It [Bush’s firing commanders who disagreed with the Surge] is like firing your psychiatrist, hiring one who agrees with your plan of recovery and then telling your wife your counselor thinks you're on track. (The Willzhead blog).


It [Democrat’s criticisms] is like driving with someone who criticizes you if you take a wrong turn, but has no idea what to do and prefers to make the situation worse so that they can continue to criticize. (The WatchBlog).


A troop surge is like finding a stockbroker who has lost millions upon millions in the past few years because of bad investments and saying, “Here, take my life savings and invest it for me.” Only an idiot would think this is a good idea. (Great Minds Think Differently blog).


Experts who know the truth understand that sending less than 60.000 more troops . . . is like putting a Band-Aid over the incision your cardiologist makes when going in for open heart work. (honey & quinine blog).


Bush is like the gambler who goes into the casino & after losing his first hand, he doubles down, loses again & doubles down again, hoping against hope that at some point he will win a hand & be ahead. Unfortunately, Bush has now lost 439 hands in a row & all his doubling down has only resulted in $350 billion down the drain, 3,000+ dead American soldiers, 45,000+ wounded American soldiers and untold hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis. (Undeniable Liberalism blog).

The Surge Is Already Paying Dividends. Thanks.

The Dowd simile watch:

The American military’s cocky heroes were supposed to sweep in and carry off a poor, grateful Iraq to security and bliss, like Richard Gere did Debra Winger in the finale of “An Officer and a Gentleman.” (Maureen Dowd in today's New York Times column, Love Among the Ruins).

And ...

One reporter who writes about the war told me he thinks of the American entrenchment in Iraq more like a marriage that’s run out of gas, but you decide to stay together because of the kids. (Dowd).

And ...

Some women say that the Surge will not work because it’s like starting over with an old boyfriend: you think you’ve learned the pitfalls and can resume with more success — you can set benchmarks! — but instead you’re swiftly ensnared by the same old failures. (Dowd).

And ...

They may still speak diplomatically, but in body language, Condoleezza Rice and her chosen new deputy, John Negroponte, radiate irritation with the Iraqis, as though they are the most irksome of cousins or in-laws who have long overstayed their welcome, or children who not only don’t thank you for presents but also leave the playroom a mess. (Dowd).

And ... the clincher

With the Surge, as with the invasion of Iraq, W. is like the presumptuous date “who reserves a hotel room and then asks you to the prom,” as my friend Dana Calvo put it. (Dowd).

Saddam's Blossoms & Sins

... our Baath Party blossoms like a branch turns green.

... We break it [the enemies' plan] as rust devours steel
Like a sinner consumed by his sins

(Part of a poem written in prison by Saddam Hussein).

Saddam, a Retrospective Postmortem

It's that his execution is like swatting a fly in the midst of a plague of locusts. In the long and troubled, occasionally graceful, history of humanity, no good has ever come from executing anyone. (The Metaphor blog).

The decision to execute Saddam is like pouring petrol onto the fire. I think that rivers of blood will flow through the country. (Iraqi quoted on BBC site ).

Saddam is like a black page in Iraq’s book, and this page needs to be turned over. (Another Iraqi on Rochester, N.Y., TV news site).

Implementing the verdict is like driving . . . Iraq into hell. (Another Iraqi quoted in a Chicago Tribune article.)

… Saddam is like a lion in a cage. ( Article on Independent Institute site ).

Delaying action against Saddam is like waiting for a killer to knock at the door… The kind of harm Saddam can deliver will take thousands of American lives if we wait. (Cal Thomas quoted on the Beast blog ).

Trying to manage the Iraqi threat under Saddam is like trying to cool a volcano with a thermostat. We must therefore declare a new objective. Our clear, unequivocal goal should be liberating the Iraqi people and the world from Saddam's tyranny, as we should have done in 1991. (Senator Joseph Lieberman on Yale University site).

Saddam is like a snake in the bedroom. We didn't chop off his head and he's around. He's developing weapons of mass destruction, chemical and biological. We know that. And we know that within three to five years he'll have nuclear weapons. (Senator Christopher Shays quoted in CNN transcript).

What the World Can't or Won't Hear

If someone this weekend says "Happy New Year" in Iraq or Afghanistan, would anyone in the world hear it? For many, the people of Iraq and Afghanistan have become like trees falling in an empty forest. The world doesn't want to hear it. (Daniel Henninger in The Wall Street Journal).

Republican, at the End of His Rope

...I remember the pride I felt when the statue of Saddam Hussein came down. I remember the thrill I felt when three times Iraqis risked their own lives to vote democratically in a way that was internationally verifiable as well as legitimate and important. Now all of those memories seem much like ashes to me. (Senator Gordon H. Smith, an Oregon Republican, in remarks on the Senate floor, saying he was at the "end of his rope" with Bush's Iraq policy).

Some Holiday Thoughts From Our Iranian Friend

"The oppressive powers will disappear while the Iranian people will stay. Any power that is close to God will survive while the powers who are far from God will disappear like the pharaohs." (Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
about Britain, Israel and the United States).

In Search of Intelligent Life in D.C.

Sounding as naked of essentials as Britney Spears, the new intelligence oversight chief [Democrat Silvestre Reyes, another Texan] pleaded that it was hard to keep all the categories straight. (Maureen Dowd in today's The New York Times on Reyes's inability to answer simple questions about Al Qaeda and Hezbollah.)

And ...

If Mr. Reyes had been reading the newspaper, he might have noticed Mr. [Jeff] Stein's piece on The Times's Op-Ed page two months earlier, in which, like a wonkish Ali G, he caught many intelligence and law enforcement officials, as well as members of Congress, who did not know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite. (Dowd).

Iraq's Deadly Ghosts

``They shoot and flee in five minutes. They disappear like ghosts.'' (An Iraqi captain in Baghdad quoted in The New York Times about increased mortar attacks).

For 'W,' a Weighty Message From Above.

Moments after the report of the Iraq Study Group descended on George W. Bush like a safe from a penthouse, its ten members fanned out in bipartisan squads to assure the world that they weren’t blaming anybody. (Talk of the Town, The New Yorker).

An Iraq Study Group Smorgasbord: From Big Macs to Fruit Salad (And a Lap Dance to Boot)

Terrorism could grow. As one Iraqi official told us, “Al Qaeda is now a franchise in Iraq, like McDonald’s.” (Excerpt from Iraq study group report).

One day after the study group rattled Washington with its bleak assessment of conditions in Iraq, its Republican co-chairman, James A. Baker III, said the White House must not treat the report “like a fruit salad” …. (Page One, New York Times).

And talking to the fanatical true believers in Iran (Ahmadinejad purged the foreign service last year, replacing experienced hands with ideological purists) about helping with security in Iraq is like inviting the wolf in for a drink and having Little Red Riding Hood give him a lap dance…. (Rick Moran on RightWingNutHouse.com blog).

As Senator Joseph Lieberman noted, “Asking Iran and Syria to help us succeed in Iraq is like your local fire department asking a couple of arsonists to help put out the fire. These people are flaming the fire.” (Heritage Foundation article).

Turning over security operations to Iraqi security forces that are dominated by the Shiite is like turning over the henhouse to the fox. Actually it would be more accurate to say it's like turning it over to your lazy dog who happens to be friends with the fox. (Three Wise Men blog).

Dealing with Syria is like dealing with a Mafia. (Post of FreeRepublic.com).

Don't Worry, Just Leave It to Jethro

Watching our political leaders try to design a plan that will ensure victory in Iraq is like watching Jethro Bodine trying to become a double naught spy. But at least Jethro was funny. (Gunz Up blog).

Iraq is like Pickett's charge in slow motion. (Perspective piece in The Rutland Herald).