Bush Reaches Another Milestone In Iraq

From MSNBC:

The number of U.S. military deaths in the Iraq war has reached 2,500, the Pentagon said Thursday, more than three years into a conflict that finds U.S. and allied foreign forces locked in a struggle with a resilient insurgency.

In addition, the Pentagon said 18,490 U.S. troops have been wounded in the war, which began in March 2003 with a U.S.-led invasion to topple President Saddam Hussein.

Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed.

Meanwhile, a second poll is showing no significant increase in the approval rating for Bush in the post-al-Zarqawi era. From AmericaBlog:

The latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll had Bush "surging" 1 point -- all the way from 36% to 37%. This morning, Matt Lauer was incredulous that the numbers for Bush haven't spiked. The media is waiting for -- and pushing the narrative that there will be -- a Bush surge. The American people, who, unlike the media, grasp that Bush has lied to them about Iraq many times, aren't giving him one. . .

For whatever reason, the traditional media always, always, always falls for the Bush spin. Yet, these days, the public doesn't. Bush can -- and does -- play the media. Exhibit A yesterday was CNN's John King who was literally gushing about the Bush trip to Iraq. But Bush's tricks and lies don't seem to be working on the American people -- yet anyway.

This has to be hugely troubling for the Bush Regime and for the GOP. Ironically, the problem may be the ignorance of the American people.

Yeah, I know -- American ignorance usually helps the GOP, but this time it might have hurt them. After all, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi wasn't exactly a household name when they blew him up. BushCo opponents knew the name because Bush had a chance to take al-Zarqawi out during the run-up to the Iraq Catastrophe, yet decided not to do so, undoubtedly because it would have demonstrated that Saddam -- our most lethal enemy and the most dangerous man since Hitler -- couldn't even control the northern part of his own country.

I wonder how many American soldiers died as a result of that particular BushCo failure.