Ahh, but the strawberries that's... that's where I had them.

Yesterday Steve Gilliard presented a convincing case that President Bush will not finish out his term. Steve builds his argument around the spectacle of our looming loss in Iraq and how it will hurt Republican political fortunes, forcing Republican politicians to extricate themselves from ties to the administration and it's record.

Interestingly Gilliard doesn't argue that Bush will be impeached but that his own personality flaws will drive him from office:

But I also think that Bush is not mentally healthy. You can take the Capital Hill Blue stories with a grain of salt, but that Vargas interview was downright creepy, not only verbally, but physically. Like he was trying to convince her his world was the real one. And she wasn't buying it.

Bush literally erupts when questioned. The DW Ports deal is just one example. No sane pol would threaten a veto when he is going to lose, over an issue which he cannot convince anyone he is right. If Tony Blair had given the Tories this kind of gift, he'd be drinking beer and watching Newcastle from the stands.

You cannot stab your own party in the back and survive, and Bush is deaf to the cries of his own party.

I agree with much of what he's saying and would like to hope he's right, but I just can't. I think he's forgotten something pretty big in his analysis.

We have most certainly lost Iraq. Considering who planned and executed the invasion and occupation we have lost Iraq the moment our M1As rolled accross the Kuwaiti border. Wishes don't bring horses or democracies. Neither does bullshit.

But where Gilliard's argument collapses is when he assumes the responsibility for the loss in Iraq will fall on Bush, his administration and the Republican congress. It may used to have been that a President who pushed for a war with the full support of his party and over the legitimate objections of critics would own the consequences of that war. That's just not the way things work anymore.

We all know that in the darkest dungeons of the Rovian war room, Wingnut Drow work feverishly to put together a convincing argument that the planning, execution and post-invasion occupation of Iraq were solely the responsibility of Howard Dean.

Because it's always important to remember that the thing that delineates post-9/11 thinking from pre-9/11 thinking is that in the post-9/11 world objective reality no longer matters.

The Mad Hatter may have been as crazy as a moonbat but he still ran the tea party.