Bush's management team

Talk about a management crisis! The reports were almost laughable, except that lives were being lost. Huge bags of cash "tossed like footballs" out of the back of pick-up trucks to local "contractors." A crony management described as "reminiscent of the Wild West." More than $9 billion just simply gone missing. And yet the lights still don't work at most hours of the day and there's no where near enough clean water.

When faced with such a massive failure of his line managers, how did our first "MBA President" respond?

1) Identify the man most directly responsible for this fiasco, Proconsul L. Paul Bremer.

2) Award him the Presidential the Medal of Freedom.

3) Tell the American people that they need to chip in another $82 billion (which is separate from the $419 billion Defense Department budget, significant portions of which are spent on Iraq and which will push overall U.S. spending for Iraq to well over $300 billion).

4) Remind the American people that the War on Terror must be working because there haven't been any attacks on U.S. soil since 9/11.

5) Change the subject and tell Americans that unless they expand the PARTRIOT Act and approve a dozen neo-fascist judges, you won't be able to guarantee their security much longer

6) Remind them that, in any case, you're not sure they'll be able to count on their Social Security benefits in the future.

And it worked. Everyone seemed to forget about Iran's nuclear program and North Korea's threat to use its nuclear weapons. And no one seemed concerned that Lebanon's army was placed on high alert following an assenting led by Syria (where the U.S. continues to outsource the torture of its prisoners.) We felt safe and sound. Our only worry was why those obstructionists in Congress won't let us put some of our money in the stock market.

BBC (UK) - Iraq agency 'run like Wild West'

Kansas City Star - Bush requests addition $82 billion for military operations