So I haven't posted anything for a while, but I've been busy doing the "hard work" of thinking about what it would be like to inhabit 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. First order of business in this new wave of ideas: figure out, distressingly so, what kinds of excuses to come with when, at the end of summer 2007, the "new way forward" in Iraq turns out to be more of the deadly same, what to tell the families of soldiers -- men, women, brothers, daughters, sisters, sons, moms, dads, aunts, uncles, even grandpas -- why it didn't work.

"Oops, we were wrong...again?"

"Our bad. Sorry."

"Guess we need better intelligence next time?"

"Do-over?"

Then again, maybe I'll feel sad for a while....