C & L caught this observation from Paul Rieckhoff on Countdown the other night:

"One of the things that did happen today that concerned me was that during Bush's press conference he actually showed a graphic that showed 24 urban military outposts in downtown Baghdad. I would argue that showing that to the world and potentially to our enemy might compromise moral - might actually compromise operational security. Our enemies aren't stupid. They can look at that and figure out a grid coordinate and try and drop mortars on those exact locations."

George Bush stood up in front of the public with cameras rolling and by all appearances gave away our positions to the enemy. This wasn't a careless slip of the tongue either. He displayed a prepared map with arrows marking the locations of two dozen new US outposts in and around Baghdad -- with major streets and landmarks thrown in for reference. Keep that in mind when those locales get hit and the routes leading in and out of them start sporting IEDs (Which may have already begun BTW).

It's doubtful we will ever know if Bush's presentation leads directly to American deaths. Just raising the question would cause the WH and the DoD to go into major spin mode and absolve the Commander-in-Chief of any and all blame a priori. They would have to deny it until stars burn out, no matter what the evidence. But stop and think for a second about what kind of full court media press could be bearing down right now on Harry Reid or Barack Obama if either one had displayed that map.

By week's end Bush had moved on to yet another painfully pathetic claim that the tide is turning:

President George W. Bush on Friday claimed that sectarian murders have dropped by half in Iraq since the latest US military build-up began in February, and said the "direction of the fight is beginning to shift".

It's disturbing that our President might be either an exceptionally delusional, fatally arrogant fool, or just a run of the mill pathological liar. But whatever is going on, it takes a spreadsheet to keep up with all the different ways he can restate the same endless bullshit.

Conversely it's comforting to think, or hope, or pray, that the episode highlighted by C & L was carefully vetted, or that it represents an isolated example of operational stupidity, one that would not likely be repeated or surpassed by Bush's fellow neocons. Then again, those were the same species of bumbling idiots who intentionally posted classified tips on how to make a nuclear bomb on the Internet ... in Arabic.