The Facts Are On Our Side

Saletan keeps it real. It's a quick read. Check it out:

Bush's arguments made the wisdom of cutting taxes unfalsifiable. In good times, tax cuts were affordable. In bad times, they were necessary. Whatever happened proved that tax cuts were good policy. When Congress approved the tax cuts, Bush said they would revive the economy. You'd know that the tax cuts had worked, because more people would be working. Three years later, more people aren't working. But in Bush's view, that, too, proves he was right. If more people aren't working, we just need more tax cuts.

Now Bush is playing the same game in postwar Iraq. When violence there was subsiding, he said it proved he was on the right track. Now violence is increasing, and Bush says this, too, proves he's on the right track.

Expect to see more of this from Bush in the debate on Thursday. Watch him paint the Iraq quagmire in pastels and acknowledge increasing violence there only as proof that we're winning. Does he believe that the bloody death and dismemberment of thousands of our fine young men is good news? Is each gallon of spilled American blood further proof that the "War On Radical Islamic Terrorists" is right on track? When will we be over the hump? When will the mission actually be accomplished?

I'll tell you when.

November 2, when this miserable failure of a President heads back to Texas.

Or Maine.