We've been planning this trip for a month. Not!

[BuyingThyme]

Does anybody else find all the "month of planning" talk to be extremely revealing?

I mean, if Chimpy's Iraq trip was such a hush-hush, top-secret operation, would they really be so jubilantly anxious to talk about all of the top-secret details afterward? Come on, now.

The fact of the matter is that Chimpy wanted to ride the momentum of his would-be Zarqawi bump, but understood that there could be a political backlash to such a shallow maneuver.

So, what do they do? They simply pretend the trip had nothing at all to do with Zarqawi.

Brilliant!

Then again, I may have the banana before the Chimp. That is, perhaps they were planning for a month -- planning the Zarqawi hit, that is.

[spinbaby]

1. You're probably right about the month's planning

This has all the marks of a public-relations blitz. Notice how the early reports had Zarqawi killed instantly? That's what was in the script, I'll bet.. And you notice how fast they had that dead-face portrait blown up to about three feet square and professionally framed.

Also, you notice, they had the "Baghdad crackdown" already organized for Chimpy's visit, complete with NEW UNIFORMS FOR IRAQI TROOPS. How long do you figure it takes to organize new uniforms?