As We Begin Year Four of Mr. Bush's Egg-cellent Folly...

Posted at The Carpetbagger Report:

With a terribly sad three-year anniversary upon us, this Center for American Progress paragraph seemed to summarize the landscape nicely.

"As we approach the third anniversary of the onset of the Iraq war," neoconservative-turned-Bush-critic Francis Fukuyama writes, "it seems very unlikely that history will judge either the intervention itself or the ideas animating it kindly." The Bush administration laid out the "ideas animating" the Iraq invasion in its 2002 National Security Strategy. According to the Bush doctrine, "America would have to launch periodic preventive wars to defend itself against rogue states" and "would do this alone, if necessary."

Yet after three years of failed policy in Iraq, the Bush administration yesterday released a "long-overdue" updated National Security Strategy that "offers no second thoughts about the preemption policy" — nor any new ideas for Iraq. "When does consistency become stubbornness…and when does stubbornness become stupidity?" asked Center for American Progress's Bob Boorstin. "When do you give up a doctrine that's not working?"

For that matter, this USA Today poll, published on Friday, helped capture the mood of the nation.

Three years after the invasion of Iraq, more than half of Americans say the war there has touched their own lives, a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll finds. By nearly 3-to-1, they say that impact has been a negative one. For most, the conflict has hit close to home: Six in 10 say a close friend, family member or co-worker has served in Iraq. More than one in 10 say someone close to them has been killed or wounded there. Six in 10 in the poll, taken Friday through Sunday, say the war has had a negative effect on the nation.

The confidence when the invasion was launched has been replaced by second-guessing about the wisdom of going to war and dissatisfaction with the way it's been waged. In March 2003, Americans by 3-to-1 said the U.S. action in Iraq was morally justified; now 50% say it's not. A month after the invasion, 85% said the war was going well; now 60% say it's going badly.

A record 60% say the war hasn't been "worth it."