Our long national nightmare..

It's getting to be downright uncomfortable listening to Little Lord Fauntleroy conduct a presser these days. Today, he carried on, petulant as ever, speaking down to the American people armed with his fourth grade vocabulary, while the Washington press corps snickered along with his "humor". When I see him these days, he looks like nothing as much as a senior in high school who's already packed it in, and can't wait for the last day of school.

This statement, on Iran, from the AP wrap up of today's press report is instructive:

But, the president added, he does not know whether the weapons were "ordered from the top echelons of government. But, my point is, what's worse, them ordering it and it happening, or them not ordering it and it happening?"

This is entirely consistent with Bush's simplistic approach to Iraq. He doesn't seem to understand that the critical issue is whether the Iranian government itself is responsible for arming Shiite terrorists that are adding to the chaos in Iraq. Just as he is fighting a "war" against an enemy that he cannot name, he intends to hold responsible a country whether that country's government is at all involved in the offense. Wars are fought against countries, not against illegal drugs, or political tactics. He can repeat "war on terra" over and over again, but if he cannot tell us who we're fighting, he's in a situation that cannot accurately be described as a war. Policing? Nation building? Peacekeeping in the middle of a Civil War based on ancient tribal entities? Sure.

Make no mistake about it, today's presser was aimed squarely at Congress, who is debating the surge. The Boy King makes it clear when he says: "They have every right to express their opposition and it is a nonbinding resolution," a tortured mosh up of two thoughts that belies his underlying belief that although the voters spoke in November, and although the Congress may speak now, their words are meaningless. Withdrawl at the behest of Congress, or the voters, however measured, equals defeat to Bush. Remember the Vanity Fair profile, so long ago:

Even if he loses, his friends say, he doesn't lose. He'll just change the score, or change the rules, or make his opponent play until he can beat him. "If you were playing basketball and you were playing to 11 and he was down, you went to 15," says Hannah, now a Dallas insurance executive. "If he wasn't winning, he would quit. He would just walk off.... It's what we called Bush Effort: If I don't like the game, I take my ball and go home.

And just like the senior sees the end of the school year, Bush sees the end of his term as an opportunity to take his ball and go home.

UPDATE: Here's a taste of the press conference