Wanker of the Day

That's the honorific bestowed on David Ignatius this morning by Atrios. He's not a first time winner and I doubt this will be the last win but this column, Bush's New Look on Iraq: Weary certainly qualifies.

Watching President Bush in recent weeks has become a grim kind of reality TV show. In almost every news conference, speech and photo opportunity, the topic is the same: what to do about the grinding war in Iraq. Bush has let the facade crack open -- admitting that his strategy for victory isn't working -- but then he struggles to rebuild it with new words of confidence.

The stress of the job -- so well hidden for much of the past six years -- has begun to show on Bush's face. He often looks burdened, distracted, haunted by a question that has no good answer. When a photographer captures him at ease, as in a sweet Texas-romance picture of Bush and his wife, Laura, that appeared in People magazine last week, it's as if he has escaped the Iraq sweatbox.

And this:

Bush is not a man for introspection. That's part of his flinty personality -- the tight, clipped answers and the forced jocularity of the nicknames he gives to reporters and White House aides. That's why this version of reality TV is so poignant: This very private man has begun to talk out loud about the emotional turmoil inside. He is letting it bleed.

He's letting it bleed all right, but not for the nearly 3000 Americans or the 10s of thousands of Iraqis who have died but for himself. The clouds of delusion may have parted enough for him to see what a cluster fuck he has created in Mesopotamia and that as a result history may not treat him kindly. George W. Bush is a sorry little excuse for a man who has never cared about anyone but himself. And as for that "sweet Texas-romance picture of Bush and his wife, Laura", it's all a carefully crafted illusion. Nice try David but no sympathy here for a man that has none.

Update
Steve Soto has some thoughts, here is the intro but be sure and read the rest.

How can the Post’s David Ignatius still wear kneepads for this president after four years of a debacle the likes of which we haven’t seen in decades? Ignatius seemingly and incredibly wants us to have some sympathy for George W. Bush because his war is going badly, and wants us to give the president his due because Bush is letting it show. F*ck that. I’ve got nearly 3,000 reasons why Bush never deserves any sympathy at all from anyone on any subject, not the least from a Post inside-the-Beltway war cheerleader who works for an institution that buried the reports from its own reporters that the administration was lying to the American people about Saddam’s WMDs.