What are the possibilities

1. Bush is truly an idiot savant idiot who believes his shit.
2. Dick Cheney is really in charge (also includes #1)
Bush, Cheney, all those other guys are really nut-job Millennialists/Satan worshippers who know Iraq is failing. They want it to fail. In fact, they want it to spread. It will spread to Israel and the End of the World. Rejoice!
3. Bush is not an idiot at all, but is simple and modest in his ability to assess the world. His employees are assuming he knows what is going on. This is a constant theme in "State of Denial"--major players assert a concern to one another or to Woodward; when asked if they have told the President of their concern, they say something to the effect of "I believe he knows my concerns" even though it is incredibly apparent that he does not.
4. Cheney (I guess this is a combination) is evil.
5. Or as massively and blatantly corrupt as we joke about him being.
6. Both.
7. Did Rumsfeld know shit was going down, and denied it externally? Did he repress it internally? Or did he really not know what was going on?

Are we ready to accept the Viet Nam comparisons? Remember, it's not just a criticism, it can show us ways out:
1. Body count is a bad measure
2. "Winning" is not a strategy any more than "I'm going to win this chess game" is a strategy. How you move the pieces, that's a strategy.
3. There need to be "honest brokers" bringing in real data and information.
4. People die and American kids die heroicly but that doesn't mean that their deaths are meaningful