corrente

Yes, a year ago tomorrow Bush defiled the name of a great Republican and President, by using the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln as photo-op fodder for campaign commercials.

You remember: The photo-op they kept the troops an extra day at sea for? The photo-op where, although the carrier was only thirty miles off shore, they turned it for the cameras to make it look like it was out at sea? The photo-op where all the other dignitaries flew in by helicopter, but Bush was flown in on a fighter jet? The photo-op where the landing restraint wire was practically slack, so the fighter rolled halfway down the deck before stopping—since if the wire is nominal and tight, civilians like Bush vomit at the sudden shock of deceleration? The photo-op where Bush wore socks for a codpiece? The photo-op with the "Mission Accomplished" banner? The photo-op where Bush denied responsibility for the "Mission Accomplished" banner when it started looking like a loser of an idea?

Yes, that photo op.

However, our Inerrant Executive is never wrong, and so He is taking the opportunity to tell us so:

It will be a year on Saturday since Bush stood on the deck of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln beneath a banner proclaiming "Mission Accomplished" and announced that major combat in Iraq had ended.

[Executive] Bush on Friday defended his speech a year ago on the deck of an aircraft carrier proclaiming the end of major combat in Iraq and said "we're making progress, you bet" in bringing stability to the war-torn country.
(via LA Times)

Right. I don't understand, though, why more Americans died after the end of "major combat" than before.

Answering reporters' questions ... Bush said that on the day he spoke aboard an aircraft carrier off San Diego, he also noted that "there was still difficult work ahead."

Oh, please. "Difficult work" like rushing in tanks and armored Humvees a year later, to deal with an insurgency? Don't make me laugh. It hurts too much.

"A year ago I did give the speech from the carrier saying we had achieved an important objective, accomplished a mission, which was the removal of Saddam Hussein," Bush said.

A little revisionist history, eh?

"As a result, there are no longer torture chambers or mass graves or rape rooms in Iraq," the president said
(via LA Times)

I'll leave it to others to argue the semantics about whether the Iraqi bodies buried in and around Fallujah are mass graves.

But Bush is—surprise!—lying about the torture chambers and rape rooms. They are still in Iraq—just run by mercenaries who should be ashamed to call themselves Americans:

Graphic photographs showing the torture and sexual abuse of Iraqi prisoners in a US-run prison outside Baghdad emerged yesterday from a military inquiry which has left six soldiers facing a possible court martial and a general under investigation.

Colonel Jill Morgenthaler, speaking for central command, told the Guardian: "One contractor was originally included with six soldiers, accused for his treatment of the prisoners, but we had no jurisdiction over him. It was left up to the contractor on how to deal with him."

She did not specify the accusation facing the contractor, but according to several sources with detailed knowledge of the case, he raped an Iraqi inmate in his mid-teens.
(via Guardian)

Eesh.

Mission accomplished, my Aunt Fanny!