The purple thumb and the war, unwon.

Purple thumbs dominated the front pages of the US press back at the end of March when George W. Bush was actually permitted to oversee an election (and amazingly, his candidate of choice won! What a democratic result!). Naturally the illiterates in the administration were proud of the photos, since their constituency cannot read or think critically due to years of TV ads and too much sugar...so images of burqa-clad veiled women were broadcast around the world to show how imminent the arrival of a "western-style democracy" was in Iraq. Notwithstanding the irony of veiled women celebrating any sort of political or social liberation, even reasonably committed lefties in the mainstream media (like Richard Cohen of the Washington Post) seemed illogically impressed with the scripted events. The last 4 weeks have left no questions as to who is really in charge in Iraq, and it isn't the Oil Raiders of Texas and Wyoming.

While Iraq has sunk further into the abyss American reporters have preferred to concentrate on steroids in baseball, Martha Stewart, a dying person on a respirator, and celebrity divorces. The infamous "10 Downing Street Memo" has been public knowledge for 3 weeks and no major media outlets have reported its existence, let alone its content. The mainstream media has lost what little credibility it had--imagine if any single one of Bush's crimes had received the same nonstop TV coverage that Lewinsky or O.J. or Laci Davenport had? Would the morons in the red states be as fooled as they are now if TV even reported 25% of the truth? The revolution will not be televised...

The final irony of the purple thumb is that a man who has stolen two elections in his home country is now responsible for maintaining the integrity of a destabilized society's election process.