TRIAL BALLOONS

Mark Twain once remarked that one should 'when in doubt tell the truth, there's a lot less to remember.' The situation on the ground in Iraq is not getting easier or better--Total victory is a 'long war' away and it appears that many senior officer's stationed there are very unhappy if not actually angry--The retired generals have stepped into the breach in a very unprecedented manner and signal a certain schism in the war and the way it's operation is being handled at the white house-- The public anxiety not only about the Iraq fiasco and the most recent sabre rattlings toward Iran but also the convergence of record oil prices with the decline in both home sales and housing prices casts a darkening cloud of fear on the political scene--The oil situation seems more than likely now to be a permanent blight on the future--Worry even among the jaded spectators of political posturing is never far from the surface when conversation turns to the Iranian dilemma--Bush appears especially desperate for a jump in the polls flailing away with the latest nuclear balloon but almost everything he attempts fails to gain traction-- Israel is said to have declared that no military action is being planned but other reports say the israeli pressure for American action is being ratcheted up--Is Bush susceptible to another messianic war fantasy to save israeli allies and rescue the republican party incumbents in serious danger of losing almost by default their majority in congress to a opposition party offering no real opposition and no real alternative agenda especially in the middle east?-- Or have the retired generals punctured the Iran War balloon?-- Is the Iraq war's Total Victory balloon too deflated to even register puncture or will a giant hissing sound spell its demise?-- Field Marshall Rumsfeld fends off his attackers for now but how many rear guard actions can he fight at the same time?--How much time is spent defending the past and re-inventing the reasons for the Iraq folly in the first place?-- Credibility?