I mean, Bush, Cheney, Rice, the Defense Department and the Republicans in Congress have been blowing sunshine up everyone's a$$ for five years now with "the occupation will pay for itself," "I doubt it will last six months," "we know where they are," "Mission Accomplished," "turning the corner," "last throes" and countless variations of "progress" - and yet here we are. They're like the Boy Who Cried Wolf in reverse - they keep telling us there's no wolf, and yet we keep getting bit, and now people aren't willing to stick around anymore to find out if they're telling the truth this time - whose fncking fault do they think that is?

I agreed but followed up asking how to get that message across when it seemed obvious to me that we in fact don’t have the political support to stay around for much longer.

He sees some signs that the progress being made in the Surge is getting reported and picked up by the American people.

Did he evade the question here? Were you asking about IRAQI or US political support?

It seems that former is the main reason for our failure. Iraqis simply don't want us there. Sure, maybe politicos like Maliki give us lipservice, but the main problem there is the fact that there is no real government and the US military is not the proper entity to do the requisite political work.

Senator John McCain held another conference call with bloggers to discuss the ethics bill before the Congress, which he terms “a sham and a joke,”

I'm confused, is he talking about the lobbying reform bill that the Senate voted on already?