Yankee Go Home (In Time For the Midterm Elections):
When the Rude Pundit listened to all the Bush administration officials and Republicans in Congress declaring that timetables for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq were worth about as much as chimp shit in the monkey jungle, he wondered, "What do the Iraqis think about this?" 'Cause, in essence, Republicans were declarin' that the Iraqis are a bunch of pussies who can't handle anything on their own; they are our children, it seems.

Vice President Dick Cheney said as much in his lil' ol' speech to the American Enterprise Institute (motto: "Give us more tax breaks and then go blow some shit up, motherfuckers") yesterday: "In light of the commitments our country has made, and given the stated intentions of the enemy, those who advocate a sudden withdrawal from Iraq should answer a few simple questions: Would the United States and other free nations be better off, or worse off, with Zarqawi, bin Laden, and Zawahiri in control of Iraq?" Now, if the Rude Pundit were an Iraqi, he'd read that to say: "Hey, you semi-dark-skinned savages are such weak little shits that you couldn't hold off an attack by poorly-armed kittens." And, whether or not that's even partly true, it's still pretty fuckin' insulting.

The Rude Pundit wondered what the putatively sovereign Iraqi leadership might have to say about the whole situation. Now they've responded, and the answer is simple: Yankee, go the fuck home. And take your shit with you. And don't worry about the mess you've made - we'll clean it up. Oh, and if Sunni militias use rocket-propelled grenades on your military convoys? That's just legitimate resistance, so stop callin' it terrorism.

This all happened at an Arab League meeting in Cairo where Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish leaders from Iraq, including the President, agreed to a communique that said, in part, it was time for "the withdrawal of foreign troops according to a timetable, through putting in place an immediate national program to rebuild the armed forces ... control the borders and the security situation."

The agreement also adopted the U.N.'s language about resistance, that it is a nation's right to resist an occupying power. However, in delineating the difference between resistance and terrorism ("Although resistance is a legitimate right of all peoples, terrorism however does not represent legitimate resistance, so we condemn terrorism and acts of violence, murder and kidnapping targeting Iraqi citizens and humanitarian, civil, government institutions, national resources and houses of worships"), what becomes pretty explicitly clear is that it's okay to fuck with the Yankees in uniform.

There's a couple of ways to see this: one would be a kind of "in-yer-fookin'-gob" to the Republicans for condemning anyone seeking withdrawal from Iraq, and that way feels so goddamn good, like a nice, round titty in your mouth. And chances are that some Republicans will be the kind of parents who can't let go of their kids, a kind of pat on the head reaction, like "Oh, it's so cute that you wanna be left at home without a babysitter, but we're sure you'll set the house on fire if we do that."

But then there's the bad side of the good of the Arab League statement on withdrawal (other than the whole "it's-okay-to-blow-up-American-soldiers" thing): that the Bush administration has an out now. They can say, "Well, fuck, they wanted us to go, so we left." And when can that happen? Shit, Jack Murtha knows the score when he told Wolf Blitzer yesterday that by next year's Congressional midterms, "I would say most of them would be out of there. They could have them all out of there."

That's the timetable suggested by the Iraqi Interior Minister, Bayan Jabr, when he said, "By the middle of next year we will be 75 percent done in building our forces and by the end of next year it will be fully ready."

Now, the Rude Pundit's no conspiracy theorist. He believes more in coincidence and chaos than design, intelligent or stupid. But, man, Karl Rove could not have planned a better timetable for flag-wavin' parades down Main Street.

Wolf Blitzer Bitch Slaps Donald Rumsfeld:
Fuck last night's bullshit Larry King interview with disgraced White House tool and ersatz "journalist" Bob Woodward. Instead, read Rummy's squirmin' blatherings as Blitzer tries to corner the Defense Secretary by doing what Dick Cheney said should be done: throwing his words right back at him.