Iraq is broken beyond repair, is there really anyway for us to fix what we have broken?

The civilian death toll is now running at roughly 100 a day, with many of the victims gruesomely tortured with power tools or acid. Over the summer, more Iraqi civilians died violent deaths each month than the number of Americans lost to terrorism on Sept. 11. Meanwhile, the electricity remains off, oil production depressed, unemployment pervasive and basic services hard to find.

Iraq is today a broken, war-torn country. Outside the relatively stable Kurdish northeast, virtually every family — Sunni or Shiite, rich or poor, powerful or powerless — must cope with fear and physical insecurity on an almost daily basis. The courts, when they function at all, are subject to political interference; street-corner justice is filling the vacuum. Religious courts are asserting their power over family life. Women’s rights are in retreat.

Growing violence, not growing democracy, is the dominant feature of Iraqi life. Every Iraqi knows this. Americans need to know it too.

The Republicans keep making the point that the Democrats do not have a plan for dealing with Iraq, while they have the "stay the course" plan that has failed so miserably thus far.

So the question for voters is do they vote for the same group of morons that broke the country, or do they vote for a new group in the hopes that they will make fewer mistakes and might stumple on a solution? It is a question of choosing between the "known" and the "unknown".

I think that what needs to happen in this November election is to get the Democrats back in control in an effort to introduce some accountability into our government. The least that this will accomplish is to keep George W. from making things too much worse before his term is over. If we can slow down the damage it will make it a litle bit easier for the next President.

And as for the "next President", who the hell wants that job?

I cannot imagine any presidential hopeful who would really want to take over this mess in Iraq. It may be the biggest screw-up in American history and anybody who touches it is going to be tainted by it for years to come. But our next President will be judged on how they handle Iraq. If they make it worse they will be compared unfavorably to George Bush (who will replace Nixon as the yardstick used to define how bad a President is from now on), if they just fail to improve conditions they will look ineffective, if they manage to fix the problem without the loss of too many more American lives they will be heralded as the new Messiah.

I think that any President who can repair the damage in Iraq could get a blowjob in the Oval office everyday if he wanted and nobody would say a word about it.(Sorry Hillary this does not extend to you.)