A New Low

Should it come as a surprise that the Bush administration has reached a new low of sorts?

President Bush’s standing with an American public anxious about Iraq and the nation’s direction is lower than that of the last two men who won re-election to the White House — Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton — at this point in their second terms.

Maybe he should meet with Cindy.

Update: Turns out the administration’s expectations in Iraq are also significantly lower than they were before.

The Bush administration is significantly lowering expectations of what can be achieved in Iraq, recognizing that the United States will have to settle for far less progress than originally envisioned during the transition due to end in four months, according to U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad.

The United States no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry or a society in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges, U.S. officials say.

"What we expected to achieve was never realistic given the timetable or what unfolded on the ground," said a senior official involved in policy since the 2003 invasion. "We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we’re in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning."

"Shedding the unreality." It would be funny if it weren’t also so tragic, having unecessarily cost so many lives. At this point, has anything in Iraq turned out the way the administration said it would? Has anything in Iraq not turned out the way the anti-war movement predicted it would?