Maybe someday they'll built permanent bases in reality

There are any number of things that are pathetic about this story:

BAGHDAD - A proposed U.S.-Iraqi security agreement that would set the conditions for a defense alliance and long-term U.S. troop presence appears increasingly in trouble, facing growing resistance from the Iraqi government, bipartisan opposition in Congress and strong questioning from Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Pathetic, in no particular order:

• The Bush Administration still thinks it can salvage something -- permanent occupation, no less -- from the wreckage of their past.
• American legislators, including the current Democratic nominee for the Presidency, need to remind the White House squatter that agreements with foreign governments need to be ratified by the Senate.
• The White House seems to not care about #2.
• Therefore, if the Iraqi occupation is finally undone, it will be because of the strength of Iraqi democratic institutions, not the sclerotic American ones.

Sad, sad, sad.

And, in case you didn't think this was all bad enough, the US is literally holding billions of dollars of Iraqi money hostage unless the Iraqi Parliament prostrates itself before Rome. Unconscionable.

Those of us -- including Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts -- who were saying since 2004 that the Bush Administration was attempting to build permanent bases in Iraq and institute a permanent occupation without democratic consent can claim to be right all along, but at this point we've racked up enough karma. I want these people gone, driven from the halls of power and whipped through the streets of Washington D.C. at mid-day.