our own malevolent tyrant

In:

The Madness of Our King George Has Even Texas Friends Worried

From:

The Niagara Falls Reporter Opinion

By:

Bill Gallagher

President George W. Bush is miserable and mad. He's off to Europe this week for the G-8 summit, and the prospect of meeting with peers who refuse to hang on his every word and bow to his whims makes him moan.

He also has to eat foreign food, sleep in an unfamiliar bed and pretend he's engaged and interested in what the other heads of state have to say. For Bush, this is pure torture, though richly deserved.

He'll probably restrain himself and not repeat his condescending, sexist shoulder rub of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. His buddy British Prime Minister Tony Blair is a lame duck, but the two will chuckle together, slap each other's knees and try to forget the disaster they brought to Iraq.

Bush can't bully the leaders of the world's major industrial nations and convince them of his righteousness the way he can his staff and friends. He is becoming increasingly unhinged and even more dangerous.

...and...

American troops have been in Korea for 57 years. Since the truce in 1953, only 90 U.S. troops have died in border clashes with the North Koreans. By contrast, in the four years since the "Mission Accomplished" proclamation, more than 3,000 American soldiers have died in Iraq, and the casualty trend lines are going up in the futile "surge" strategy.

The Iraqi bomb-makers are boosting production, and no matter what we do militarily, they cannot be stopped. More money and more troops won't change that grim reality. More Americans died in April and May than in any other two-month period since the war began. In May alone, more than 2,000 Iraqi civilians died.

...and...

Even our own malevolent tyrant knows there will be no ease this summer for those living in Iraq. He recently said, "It could be bloody -- it could be a very difficult August." He should know because, as he likes to remind us, "I am the president! I am the president! I am the president!"

Nailed it, eh?