Let's start by stipulating that the arguments for our Iraq policy have been a pretty big crock for a really long time. We want to calm the place down so they can have democracy. As long as we can also get all the terrorists there so we can fight them in one place of our choosing. Or we need to fight in Iraq because the real threat is Iran. Etc. etc. etc.

We know all the rationales. I've even made something of a career of chronicling them. But as we saw in President Bush's speech last night things have gotten to a point where the White House spinmeisters hardly seem even to have their heart in it anymore. And the president just seems to be living in some sort of alternative universe populated by the failed gods of his narcissism and vainglory.

As the president lays out in the second paragraph of his speech, there are first our allies the Iraqis who are battling the extremists who want to take away their freedom and democracy. And we cannot abandon them in this fight. Indeed they are asking us to build an "enduring relationship" (i.e., long-term presence of American troops) with them.

This seems not to take into account that a sizable majority of Iraqis believe it is acceptable to kill our troops in the country. And there is virtual unanimity within the Iraqi population against any permanent American troop presence in the country -- with the exception of the Iraqi Kurds who now enjoy de facto independence under our protection.

The only reasonable argument that I can see for our continued occupation of Iraq (though on balance I find it unpersuasive and disagree with it) is that we have screwed things up so badly and made the place such a powder keg that we need to stay there to try to undo or at least ameliorate what a disaster we've created -- to paraphrase Woody Allen's famous line from Annie Hall to get Iraq safely back from horror to mere misery.

But with respect to the president's cartoonish babble, like I said, whatever. I know this reads like an expression of cynicism or disengagement. But while the president's chatter, with its brainlessness and brazenness, drives many to distraction, I think this is the only appropriate response. Anyone watching what's happening can see that what the president is talking about bears no relation to what's actually happening in Iraq -- a fact well confirmed by the fact that polls show no change in the public's take on what's happening in response to the president's speech. Primitive animals will sometimes keep chattering or twitching their muscles even after their heads have been cut off. And that's probably the best analogy today to the president's continuing enunciation of his policies.

The president's continuing power as commander-in-chief, behind a wall of 1/3+ support in the Congress, is key. His arguments aren't. They have simply predeceased his presidency.