Bush: "Get Me Earl Scheib"

With respect to Bush's claim yesterday, Kevin Drum states the obvious very well:

...after June 30, the Iraqis will have "full sovereignty." This is obviously nonsense since we intend to keep 150,000 troops on their soil and maintain full control of the Iraqi security forces as well. .... It's true that Iraqis won't be fooled by this, but for that reason they aren't going to be disappointed either. Americans, however, are going to be fooled by it, and that's all Bush cares about. A hundred million people are going to hear that we're handing over "full sovereignty," and maybe 1% of them will read or hear an explanation of why that's not true. So it's a win for Bush. The real danger is that it sets up Americans for disappointment, not Iraqis. The Iraqis will shrug their shoulders and continue to agitate for American withdrawl, and Americans will be left wondering why the Iraqis continue to be so ungrateful even though we've turned over full sovereignty to them just like we said we would. Of such things is American self-delusion born.

I expect Bush's polling numbers to shoot up in July after the "handover" of power to the "independent" iraqi government. That will give Kerry about three months to convince voters that they are just looking at the same thing with a new face; I don't know if Kerry and his bumbling Dems can handle this... we'll have to hold our breath and see.

Bush's agenda looks kinda like Earl Scheib putting a new coat of paint on a crash-test car and calling it fixed and ready for another test.