Has GWB become our Baghdad Bob?

"This farrago of caricature and non sequitur makes the administration seem eager to repel all but the delusional." -- Conservative columnist George Will, Washington Post, 8/15/06.

USA president Bush says 2006 Lebanon War was a decisive defeat for Hezbollah.

Even Israel does not believe that.

USA Sec. of State Dr. C. Rice clearly stated at beginning of Lebanon War that it was premature for a cease-fire and that a cease fire would have to wait until conditions were "conducive," etc. etc. This obviously meant that USA believed the "conducive" conditions would occur when Israel had succeeded in its Shock and Awe objective of wiping out Hezbollah as a military entity; and the US refusal to broker a cease fire was part of a tacit agreement with Israel to give them enough time (and advanced bombs) to achieve the goal.

But Shock and Awe failed. Hezbollah is still there.

How can Bush say Israel won a decisive victory when Israel's military objective completely failed?

Does Bush think Hezbollah is going to scratch their heads and say "we lost" just because Bush said so?

Does Bush believe anyone in the world, outside of the Republican Congress, believes such a statement?

Does Bush think the Arab world believes such a statement?

Does Bush think Osama bin Laden believes such a statement?

Does Bush think Hamas believes such a statement?

Does Bush think Iran and Syria believe such a statement?

Does Bush think Russia and China believe such a statement?

What happens to the level of respect accorded to the US by other nations when Bush says this?

This statement eerily resembles the Watergate tapes of Richard Nixon just a few weeks before his resignation.

Even as Congress was measuring Nixon's neck circumference for a trophy mount, Nixon is heard on the Watergate tapes confidently outlining all the ways in which he will be vindicated and his enemies will be shamed and defeated.

As recounted in Blind Ambition by John Dean, Sen. Barry Goldwater and three other Senators had to go to the White House and perform an "emergency intervention" by telling Nixon to his face his cause was hopeless. This was done because Goldwater and others were getting bad signs that Nixon was becoming psychologically unhinged (and according to Dean, had taken to drinking himself, alone, into a self-pitying, maudlin and paranoid stupor). Goldwater et al. felt that if they did not step in forcefully and privately, Nixon might provoke a constitutional crisis by refusing to honor a Senate confirmation of a vote of Impeachment by the House of Representatives.

A man without eyes can only swing wildly. Like Nixon in 1974, Bush has apparently become so insulated by toadying, protective enablers that he is allowed to freely speak and convince himself that his utterances make sense and are viewed as credible by other world leaders.

When does our President start discussing the whereabouts of the missing strawberries?