AN ALTERNATE UIVERSE

I'm half-listening to David Gregory's interview with Condi Rice on Hardball (my kids keep demanding my attention), and all I can think is, she's slick, she sounds knowledgeable and authoritative, but WHAT WORLD IS SHE TALKING ABOUT?

The day is coming, she said, when the U.S. will wrap up its mission there (in Iraq). What we must not do is lose sight of why the Iraq mission is so important. That Iraq will (my paraphrase) ultimately be a centerpiece of democracy and be a beacon to the rest of the Middle East.

Today, Iraqis demonstrated in the hundreds of thousands in support of Hezbollah. So much for the Bush administration's contention that the path to peace in the Middle East is through Baghdad.

Tags: Condi Rice, Iraq war, Middle East crisis