"Commanders on the ground," my ass!

I'm not the first to point this out, but not enough people are, including the Lib'rul Media: Bush said that his decisions in Iraq would be based on requests and recommendations from "commanders on the ground," not politicians in Washington, implying that his Iraq war was somehow apolitical, and divorced from partisan pressures and public opinion.

But Bush just announced that he's re-assigning the commanders on the ground. Bush would like to replace Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, and Gen. George Casey, the chief general in Iraq. Adm. William Fallon, the top U.S. commander in the Pacific, will replace Abizaid. And Army Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, who headed the effort to train Iraqi security forces, will replace Gen. Casey.

I'm not debating whether Gen's. Fallon and Petraeus are qualified. I'm simply outraged by this latest example of Bush's gross hypocrisy -- well, lying, why sugarcoat it.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid described Bush's hypocrisy succintly: "The president said he was going to listen to his commanders, but if he listens to his commanders he can't do this. I know he's shuffling some of them out, I've been told it's because they're not telling them what he wants to hear."

Harry Reid was referring in part to Gen. Abizaid, who has publicly expressed doubt about sending more U.S. troops to Iraq, and who is now being replaced just when Bush is said to be seriously considering a "surge" of additional U.S. troops -- probably 20,000 to 30,000 of them.

I'll be honest: I think it's stupid to leave crucial political decisions about war & peace in the hands of our generals. After all, "war is politics by other means;" and our Founding Fathers intended that a civilian president (a politician) -- not a professional soldier -- would be commader-in-chief.

And for the record, I don't think Bush ever really did "hand them the keys" to the military. He, Rumsfeld, and Cheney have been directing our military all along. As they're supposed to. The point is that Bush sought to deflect criticism and responsibility from himself by copping out, by saying "It's the generals running this war, not lil' ole me!" We all knew it was B.S., the media knew it was B.S., yet somehow everyone was too polite to call Bush on this obvious lie.

People who agree with me will share in my outrage at Bush's latest 180, but they won't be surprised. You simply can't trust anything he says, because tomorrow it may change completely, and he'll tell you that's what he meant all along, a la 1984.

But you conservatives out there who support Bush -- how do you digest this crap without throwing up? What makes you persist in supporting this man, our lame duck president? What secret signals of integrity and competence do you receive from Bush that the rest of us miss? Or, are you just too proud to admit you invested your faith and reputation in a weasely, incompetent fraud?