Another Fine Mess �

It's been pointed out by some bloggers that the 'B' and the 'S' key aren't adjacent to one another, suggesting that it was more than a typographical error and indicative of bias as well as perpetuating the non-issue of the Senator's middle and last names.

Senator Obama has graciously accepted Wolf Blitzer's apology and explanation.

Having worked in news, it's entirely possible that it was nothing more than a mistake. An embarassing one, to be sure, but not the act of deliberate malice. The text is often prepared separately from the graphic/video, so the hapless typist would not necessarily have seen bin Laden's image and realized their mistake.

I'd love to hear the production line chatter (director, producer, etc. control room dialogue, such as 'take two ... and cue Wolf').

The spin continues as the White House seeks to pave the way for the New Path Forward.

It's still not Bush's fault. It's those damned insurgents. It's the chaos which overtook our very excellent plan to sit there in the road and get hit by traffic in both directions. It's General Casey's fault.

National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley bemoaned the inability to execute the 'clear, hold, and build' strategy that was Bush's sales pitch for 2006.

�Iraqi forces were not able to hold neighborhoods, and the effort to build did not show up. The sectarian violence continued to mount, so we did not make the progress on security we had hoped. We did not bring the moderate Sunnis off the fence, as we had hoped. The Shia lost patience, and began to see the militias as their protectors,� Hadley says.

It sounds to me like a plan that was conceived without understanding the reality on the ground. A catch-phrase, 'clear, hold, and build,' was promoted as both mission and strategy. Not to mention there seems to have been a lot of hoping and wishing and praying going on.

The BBC is reporting that Mr. Bush's New Path Forward is due to be unveiled.

Its theme? Sacrifice.

3,000 and counting, Mr. Bush.

It would seem that the Iraqis are learning all the wrong things from their American liberators. Like how to weasel around laws forbidding executions during the Eid-al-Adha holiday.

With at least one 'cell-phone' video of the execution having made it onto the net, people are also asking why the hangman was dressed in a ski mask and leather jacket. Or why the crowd was taunting Saddam by chanting Moqtada al-Sadr's name.

Of course, the press is reporting that American officials were concerned about the whole thing.

Even though they were the ones who released Saddam into Iraqi custody for the execution.

And President Bush was reportedly sacking z's at the ranch. I guess he really does sleep better than most people assume.

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