The whole exercise in slapstick began last Monday, when Bush went before a host of hand-picked lackeys to boost the war effort and declared: "The work ahead in Iraq is hard." Zzzzzzzz.

Then, the polls came out, most of them early in the week, declaring Bush a putz. At week's end a Harris poll put the final nail in the PR coffin, announcing that 68% of Americans believe that Bush has screwed the pooch in Iraq.

An earlier Pew poll found folks describing Bush in different terminology than usual. Whereas, in the past, those polled most frequently offered words to describe the President as "honest," as well as "integrity" and "excellent" and "great," the new one was a doozy. The current descriptions include "incompetent," "idiot" "jerk," "selfish," "arrogant," "ass," "untrustworthy," and "liar."

So, launch Operation Swarmer or....Operation Photo Op.

Last Thursday, the U.S. sent 1,500 Iraqi and American forces into the countryside north of Samarra (where the Mosque went kablooey). They were transported in 50 helicopters and aided by 200 plus tactical vehicles. So, who were we after? God only knows. Sunni insurgents? Al-Qaeda? Martians?

Presidential security adviser Lt. Gen. Wafiq al-Samaraei said the operation was targeting "a bunch of strange criminals who came from outside the country and among them a bunch of Iraqi criminals who help them."

Uh, could you be any more vague? Are we talking Jihadist jugglers? Three-card monty marauders? Perverted purveyors of wedgies?

Amazingly, no shots were fired, although we blowed some stuff up.

Residents in the area of the assault said large explosions could be heard in the distance. American forces routinely blow up structures they suspect as insurgent safe-houses or weapons depots. There was little or no resistance and the military reported detaining 41 people. They, later, released ten of them. Sorry, Hoss, Adam and Little Joe. You were just too durned close to your evil farm and we had to pick you up.

Hours after the assault began, Iraq's new parliament was sworn in behind the concrete blast walls of the heavily fortified Green Zone, with political factions still deadlocked over the next government and vehicles banned from Baghdad's streets to prevent car bombings. Now, that just reeks of progress.

Adnan Pachachi, the senior politician who administered the oath in the absence of a parliament speaker, spoke of a country in crisis.

"We have to prove to the world that a civil war is not and will not take place among our people," Pachachi told lawmakers. "The danger is still looming and the enemies are ready for us because they do not like to see a united, strong, stable Iraq."

As he spoke, Pachachi was interrupted from the floor by senior Shiite leader Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, who said the remarks were political and inappropriate.

The group split after 30 long minutes, arguing about the oath for about 27 of those democratic minutes.

Meanwhile, back on the alleged front, the Pentagon announced there were no reporters embedded with U.S. troops. Instead, it released snazzy videos and a series of photos of preparations for the assault. The images showed soldiers receiving a preflight briefing from a UH-60 Blackhawk crew chief, soldiers and aircraft positioned on an airstrip, and helicopters taking off over a dusty landscape. There's no business like show/war business. And the cable TV graphics were simply splendid!

On Thursday, Maj. Tom Bryant, a public affairs officer in Tirkrit for the 101st Airborne declared that there were "a few more" Iraqi troops than Americans in the mix.

By Friday, speaking by video conference with Pentagon reporters, the U.S. second-in-command, Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, stressed that the majority of troops in the operation were Iraqi. He said the goal is to have Iraqi security forces in control of 75 percent of Iraq by this summer. He said that without laughing, too.

On Thursday, 41 Iraqi "criminals" were rounded up. By Friday? The number was 31. By Saturday? There were 80 in custody. No, make that sixty. Or something. When you're dealing with "strange criminals," it's hard to keep track. (How do you separate the "strange" ones from the "slightly odd" ones?)

On Friday, Iraqi political leaders met again, this time for almost two hours of "yo' Mullah" dissing, before running home with no big thoughts to report.

Still, America is making an impact on Iraq. On the plus side, Iraq's secretive militias are out performing Iraq's army. Since Samarra's mosque was hit, hundreds of Iraqi citizens have been "whacked," execution-style; nearly 200 in the last week alone. Some of the victims were blind-folded, some masked, some strangled, some shot in the casaba, some beheaded. These shadowy guys make "The Sopranos" look like the Girl Scouts.

So, how's this new military operation going? Notso hotso, according to national Iraqi security advisor Lt. Gen. Wafig al-Samaraei. Although weapons caches have been found, he wasn't crazy about the Americans arresting every Iraqi in sight.

In a TV interview, al-Samaraei urged that the U.S.-Iraqi operation ease restrictions on traffic across Samarra's vital Tigris River bridge, and cease "disarming the people of Samarra of their own authorized weapons" - necessary, he said, to confront the "Zarqawi terrorists."

"Many young people were detained, some of them innocent, and I call for their quick release," al-Samaraei said. But he also called on Samarra's youths "to lay down their arms and join the political process."

But, surely this massive mission put a real crimp in the insurgents' style. Uh, not really. A "Time magazine" reporter chronicled journalists being dropped into a rural farm by U.S. choppers wherein they found six sickly cows and a woman making bread. The Iraqi/American troops scoured the fields. The cows proved a bad source of intelligence.

The article concluded: "Before loading up into the helicopters for a return trip to Baghdad, Iraqi and American soldiers and some reporters helped themselves to the woman's freshly baked bread, tearing bits off and chewing it as they wandered among the cows. For most of them, it was the only thing worthwhile they'd found all day."

Now, while all this was going on and getting breathless publicity, some disturbing political maneuvering was going on stateside.

For the fourth year in a row, Congress raised the federal debt ceiling, allowing the government to borrow an additional $781 billion, to prevent a first-ever default on Treasury notes and a governmental shut down. And, because of Bush's binge spending, most financial experts expect it to be raised again, next year. The current debt ceiling is $8.2 trillion, $3 trillion more than it was four years ago. Way to go, you compassionate conservatives.

On Thursday, four Republican senators introduced a bill that they hope will end the furor over President Bush's illegal surveillance program by declaring it legal. Taaa-daaa!

One of the bill's chief sponsors, Sen. Mike DeWine of Ohio, said the bill requires the president to go to court as soon as possible to get approval for wiretapping and other forms of monitoring. Of course, the bill does no such thing.

"It does not ... give the president a blank check," DeWine lied, while authorizing "a limited, but necessary, program." The proposal came under immediate criticism from advocacy groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union.

The ACLU said in a statement that the bill would allow "Americans' phone calls and e-mails to be monitored for 45 days without any court oversight and makes court review after that period optional" -- in violation of the Fourth Amendment's guarantees against unreasonable searches.

"Congress cannot approve an illegal program when so many questions remain unanswered," said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU's Washington legislative office. "When the rule of law has been broken by anyone, especially a president, the proper response is a full and independent investigation."

The bill would give the government up to 45 days to monitor calls and e-mails of suspected terrorists (like the ACLU) when one party is in the U.S. and the other is overseas. Like Bush's current illegal program, the government would not have to get court approval. Freedom is on the march! Just not here.

Also on Thursday, President Bush renewed his administration's first-strike policy against terrorists and other U.S. enemies and rebuked Iran over allegations it is secretly amassing nuclear weapons.

The White House said that by reaffirming the pre-emptive policy, the United States was not targeting Iran. Yet the national security strategy pamphlet released included harsh words for the Iranian government, which Bush says may pose the greatest challenge to the U.S....this week.

"Our preference is to act through diplomacy in conjunction with friends and allies. That is our preference. That is our preference," Stephen Hadley, the president's national security adviser, said about the doctrine of preemption, preemption.

"It simply says, that one cannot let dangers grow to the point of eminent threat to the United States without taking action, and if other measures fail, obviously we retain the right to use force."

In simple talk? Shoot first, think later. Nice. As we all know this is an administration that thinks a lot later. Uh, or not.

Bush's mucho macho stance did manage to generate profound political dialogue here at home, as evidenced by this exchange between veteran reporter Helen Thomas and master fabricator Spanky McClellan:

THOMAS: "Does the President know that he's in violation of international law when he advocates preemptive war? The U.N. Charter, Geneva, Nuremberg. We violate international law when we advocate attacking a country that did not attack us."

McCLELLAN: "Helen, I would just disagree with your assessment. First of all, preemption is a long-standing principle of American foreign -"

HELEN: "It's not a long-standing principle with us. It's your principle."

McCLELLAN: "Have you asked your question?"

HELEN: "It's a violation of international law."

McCLELLAN: "First of all, let me back up, preemption is a long-standing principle of American foreign policy. It is also part -"

HELEN: "It's never been."

McCLELLAN: "It is also part of an inherent right to self-defense. But what we seek to do is to address issues diplomatically by working with our friends and allies, and working with regional partners. That's what we're doing when it comes to the threat posed by Iran pursuing nuclear weapons. That's what we're doing when it comes to resolving the nuclear issue with North Korea. So we seek diplomatic solutions to confront threats.

"And it's important what September 11th taught us -"

HELEN: "The heavy emphasis of your paper today is war and preemptive war."

McCLELLAN: "Can I finish responding to your question, because I think it's important to answer your question. It's a good question and it's a fair question. But first of all, are we supposed to wait until a threat fully materializes and then respond? September 11th -"

HELEN: "Under international law you have to be attacked first."

McCLELLAN: "Helen, you're not letting me respond to your question. You have the opportunity to ask your question, and I would like to be able to provide a response so that the American people can hear what our view is. This is not new in terms of our foreign policy. This has been a long-standing principle, the question that you bring up. But again, I'll put the question back to you. Are we supposed to wait until a threat fully materializes before we respond -"

HELEN: "You had no threat from Iraq."

McCLELLAN: "September 11th taught us -"

HELEN: "That was not a threat from Iraq."

McClellan's never been a big fan of either facts or history.

On that same Thursday. Condi Rice gave a cheerleading speech before a college crowd in Sydney, Australia with mixed results.

"Condoleezza Rice, you're a war criminal," a young man shouted minutes after she began her address. "Iraqi blood is on your hands and you can't wash that blood away," he repeated until guards led him away.

Rice drew applause with her response: "I'm glad to see that democracy is well and alive at the university," she said, adding that democracy is now also alive at universities in Kabul, Afghanistan and Baghdad, Iraq (although most of the students are not) .

A second protester stood and yelled that Rice was a murderer. Clearly, the preemptive Bush Doctrine has endeared us to the entire world.

Speaking of our global cred, Paul R. Pillar, the former CIA official who coordinated U.S. Intelligence on the Middle East until last year, offered this assessment at a recent talk to the Council on Foreign Relations: "I really believe this: that the main motivation for Operation Iraqi Freedom was to stir up the politics and economics of the Middle East and use regime change in Iraq as a stimulus for regime change and other kinds of changes elsewhere in the region, leading to more open political and economic structures."

Huh? What about WMD? And mushroom clouds? And fighting them over there so we don't hafta fight them in downtown Philadelphia? And spreading freedom and democracy 'cause God wants everyone to be happy?

Why the heck are we over there, anyway?

Well, they have nice cows and you just can't beat the taste of fresh, home-made bread.

Mission Accomplished! Yummm.