Late last year, President Bush famously informed the nation that he doesn't read newspapers because "the best way to get the news is from objective sources. And the most objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what’s happening in the world."

Which would probably sound at least a little less fatuous this morning if Kevin Drum weren't so clearly correct in his assessment of Mr. Bush's bizarre, welcome-to-Fantasy-Island performance in the Rose Garden yesterday:

Thursday's press conference was just scary. It's no longer clear if George Bush is merely a cynical, calculating politician — which would be bad enough — or if he actually believes all the happy talk about Iraq that his speechwriters produce for him. Increasingly, though, it seems like the latter: he genuinely doesn't have a clue about what's going on. What's more, his staff is keeping him in a sort of Nixonian bubble, afraid to tell him the truth and afraid to take any positive action for fear that it might affect the election.

Like Kevin, I honestly don't know whether President Bush is an unusually good prevaricator, or so far removed from reality that he winds up saying things that just don't compute. Either way, though, the results are the same: the American people get lied to, and our fighting men and women get the shaft. And that's every bit as unacceptable today as it was the last time we found ourselves in that situation.

--------