While all the other justifications have fallen away, there was this key idea that we could rebuild Iraqi security so that the locals could protect themselves and we could pull our troops out. Instead, the administration has turned a blind eye to the plunder and at the same time closed the door on any sort of graceful exit strategy, leaving Rove with a nightmare choice - pull out of Iraq for the 2006 midterms and deal with pictures civil order turned random (and that's worse than chaos) or explain why the troops are still there.

Or can it be that the government-by-Carlyle is SO cynical that they're willing to let Rove hang, twisting in the wind, just so they can continue to privatize the American natioinal wealth? It's got to be something, because this level of corruption and duplicity can't be explained away by incompetence, no matter how pervasive it be.