Here are two instances of "You've got to be fucking kidding me" news today.

First, read this New York Times opener:(picked up from Atrios initially):

As President Bush was traveling through the Midwest on his exuberant bus tour last week, his campaign aides still sounded confident that the revelations of how Iraqi prisoners were abused would do far more harm to the United States' image abroad than to the president's standing at home.

This makes me want to vomit.  As long as they're exuberant, I suppose it's not a big deal that hurting the US image abroad might, say, hurt the war on terrorism?  But I don't want to get in the way of anyone's exuberance.  Let's translate this to:

President Bush's aides acknowledged that their candidate is damaging the US internationally, but nevertheless they feel confident that Americans don't care or don't know enough to vote against him.

Second, while the overall article in today's Post is fine, my jaw dropped at the outset:

With stunning brazenness, pinpoint timing and devastating force, the suicide car bomber who killed the head of Iraq's Governing Council on Monday gave shape to a feeling among Iraqi and U.S. officials and common citizens that the country is almost unmanageable.

Gosh, you think?  It's interesting, because before the war there was hardly anyone who said that Iraq would be unmanageable. 

That said, this news about the suicide bombing is just really, really, really, really, really, really bad. 

9:28:02 AM    comment []