No matter the evidence...

You can't make this stuff up!

Pentagon says new Iraq fighting arises from surge's success
AFP
26 March 2008
WASHINGTON (AFP) — The Pentagon on Wednesday said an eruption of violence in southern Iraq, where US-backed government forces were battling Shiite militias, was a "by-product of the success of the surge."

Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said it showed that the Iraqi government and security forces were now confident enough to take the initiative against Shiite extremists in the southern port of Basra.

In more than one previous post I've noted that it really doesn't matter what the facts are: any and all facts always support the same conclusion:

Everything is just peachy!

Would it be too much for a brave White House correspondent to ask what, exactly, the "facts on the ground" would have to be for this Administration to admit that there might be some problems?

Yet another previous post notes that the public soured on Viet Nam when LBJ & Nixon continued to spout success stories when Walter Cronkite kept showing more and more nastiness on the ground. The phrase then was "credibility gap". It's time to resurrect this handy shorthand!

Credibility gap
Credibility gap is a political term that came into wide use during the 1960s and 1970s. At the time, it was most frequently used to describe public skepticism about the Johnson administration's statements and policies on the Vietnam War. Today, it is used more generally to describe almost any "gap" between the reality of a situation and what politicians and government agencies say about it.

Coinage of the term is uncertain.

"Credibility gap" was originally used in association with the Vietnam War in the New York Herald Tribune in March 1965, to describe then-president Lyndon Johnson's handling of the escalation of American involvement in the war. A number of events—particularly the surprise Tet Offensive, and later the 1971 release of the Pentagon Papers—helped to confirm public suspicion that there was a significant "gap" between the administration's declarations of controlled military and political resolution, and the reality.

The Administration does itself no favors by spinning the news to support the narrative, "the surge is working".

There are limits to the American public's credulity.

Stop the madness!