Nice Messaging

I know that Condi's visit to Iraq was supposed to change the storyline on Iraq. You know how the narrative was supposed to go: "The Bush Administration is changing course in Iraq by putting vastly increased pressure on the Iraqi government to make the hard choices." Instead, her plane had to circle for 45 minutes because the airport - the second most secure spot in Baghdad outside the Greenzone - was being shelled. Then she had to talk to President Talibani in the dark because the power went out. This is the same week that 21 G.I.s were killed - a rate as high as we have seen since the invasion.

Then again, a picture is worth a thousand words. Here, the obvious thing I pick out in this picture is her enthusiastic smile, so things must be getting better, right?

Oh yeah, that's a shiny place, alright. It's doing so well that President Purple Tie doesn't even need a flak jacket!