Nice Article, But ....

Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE)'s article in today's Washington Post makes some valid points. It's true that our policies in Southwest Asia have alienated a lot of the Muslim world, who now consider the United States to be a greater threat than Osama bin Laden.

It's true that the debacle in Iraq is costing us billions, and may drag our economy down to ruin.

It's true that our military is going to reach a breaking point soon, with consequences that will again have Administration apologists and pundits lamenting, "No one could have foreseen ..."

It's true that we need to get out of Iraq.

But ...

Senator Hagel must know that there is no way, no way on God's green Earth and no way in Hell that George Bush will ever voluntarily withdraw our military from Iraq.

To do so would repudiate everything he stands for, and brand him as an abject failure.

It would forever mark him and all of those who cling to him as a baby wolf spider clings to its mother's hairy back as stupid, greedy failures capable of turning everything they touch into pure shit.

So Iraqis will continue to die.

Americans will continue to die.

America will continue to lose money.

And Senator Hagel knows this.