... But, better late than never.

Finally (!!) some Republicans are starting to talk about the proverbial Pink Elephant in the living room that nobody wants to talk about. Namely, the worsening situation in Iraq. Kerry has been saying that Bush is hiding a plan to call up large numbers of more Guards and Reserves after the election. Ed Gillespie (Chair of the RNC) and other Bush partisans have claimed that Kerry is resorting to fear tactics. But, anyone following the situation both in Iraq as well as in our over-stretched military know that Bush has precious little choice. Only he wants to keep it under wraps because it doesn't jibe with his stump speech lies that everything in Iraq is peachy.

Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska said on CBS's Face the Nation,

"The fact is, we're in deep trouble in Iraq ... and I think we're going to have to look at some recalibration of policy."

Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona said on Fox News Sunday, "We made serious mistakes." He cited the toleration of massive looting in the immediate aftemath of Saddam's government crumbling and the failure to secure Iraq's borders, as well as having allowed insurgents to develop strongholds in the country. Of course that was all politically nice ways of saying that Bush and Rumsfeld "Cheneyed Up" be refusing to listen to those who told them going in that we'd need several hundred thousand troops to do the job right.

McCain said that a ground offensive is urgently needed to retake areas held by insurgents in places like Falluja. "We've got to take out the sanctuaries. We're going to have to sustain, tragically, some more casualties. Airstrikes don't do it; artillery doesn't do it. Boots on the ground do it," McCain said. "And the longer we delay ...the more difficult the challenge is going to be and the more casualties we will incur."

This is something that McCain and Kerry both understand well, having been in war themselves. And perhaps that is at the root of why Bush has allowed this mess to get so bad in the first place... he simply doesn't appreciate the sacrifices being made by our soldiers in the field. Why else would he allow Iraq to spiral downward into a morass while putting a happy face on the situation when speaking to Americans? He knew going in and has been told repeatedly in the months since invading that we simply didn't have enough troops to do the job.

More American casualties will indeed be tragic. And the blame falls squarely on Bush. But of course we all know that he won't accept responsibility for it. He's never accepted responsibility for any of his decisions that didn't pan out according to the fantasy world he lives in. But I diverge... there's more.

McCain said Bush had been "perhaps not as straight as maybe we'd like to see."

"I think the president is being clear. I would like to see him more clear."

Excuse me, Senator, but I'm not as stupid as you apparently believe me to be. If you would like to see Bush be "more clear" then, by definition, he isn't being clear now. Whatever happened to the man who launched the vaunted "Straight Talk Express"?

Republican Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, also Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, criticized the way that Bush has handled the reconstruction of Iraq while on ABC's This Week show. I don't know why this should surprise anyone. Bush made all kinds of reconstruction promises to Afghanistan which haven't materialized. Anyway, Lugar pointed out that Bush has only spent $1 billion of the $18.4 billion that Congress allocated for reconstruction in Iraq. This would be the very same Congressional allocation for which Bush and Cheney have been trying to paint Kerry as a flip-flopper for how he voted on it. Now if it were really all that important to Bush or Cheney, don't you think they'd have spent more than a paltry 5% of it by now? Oh... that's right. :::shhhhhh::: We're supposed to be stupid.

The most interesting statement came from McCain's fellow Arizona Republican Senator John Kyle on Face The Nation.

"Allowing the Iraqis to make the decisions not to go into some of these sanctuaries, I think, turns out to have not been a good decision, which we're going to have to correct now by going in with our Marines and Army divisions."

Um... you mean the same Iraqis that Bush allegedly turned "full sovereignty" over to in June? No need to answer that, Senator. I suspect you said a great deal more than you intended to. But, never fear. The truth will set you free. Besides, it's gotta be tough covering for Bush on so many different issues. I don't blame you for letting that one slip out. You're only human, after all.