There's an undeniable buzz in the air as January 30th, the date of the upcoming Iraqi elections, rapidly approaches. It's much akin to that feeling of excitement one gets around the holidays as you watch presents slowly accumulate underneath the family Christmas tree, and they just keep accumulating, and you're all, "Wow, how many of those presents are for me, and what did I get?"

And since you're such a simpleminded bastard, you hold a press conference, and you talk about how excited you are about your presents. You prattle on and on about how you "think elections will be such a incredibly hopeful experience for the Iraqi people." And you add that

14 of Iraq's 18 provinces "appear to be relatively calm." The four remaining provinces "are places where the terrorists are trying to stop people from voting," [you] said. "So I know it's hard. But it's hard for a reason. And the reason it's hard is because there are a handful of folks who fear freedom."

And then this Grinch-like Brent Scowcroft asshole, who served under your dad as his national security adviser, and who just now apparently decided to fucking betray you, starts trying to take a bunch of the presents away and opens them up and shows you that there's coal inside the sloppily-packaged boxes. And then you go, "Wow, 'coal' is a bad metaphor for 'dissent and civil war', and the gift boxes are an even worse metaphor for 'free and stable elections!'"

So, anyway, Scowcroft goes on:

"The Iraqi elections, rather than turning out to be a promising turning point, have the great potential for deepening the conflict," Scowcroft said. He said he expects increased divisions between Shiite and Sunni Muslims after the Jan. 30 elections, when experts believe the government will be dominated by the majority Shiites.

Scowcroft predicted "an incipient civil war" would grip Iraq and said the best hope for pulling the country from chaos would be to turn the U.S. operation over to NATO or the United Nations -- which, he said, would not be so hostilely viewed by Iraqis.

But you? You're sticking to your guns; you're a stubborn, close-minded simpleton, after all. You're staying with those numbers you cited above, how 14 of the 18 extant provinces are "safe" and "calm." And, yeah, there are those four troubled regions, but you know what? Four out of eighteen, thats less than a quarter of the Iraqi geographic spectrum.

But your math, as usual, fucking sucks, and is distorted to no end, and doesn't accurately take into account the depth of the problem. Because what you've left out of your simpleminded assessment of reality is the key fact that, get this, those four troubled provinces together contain more than half the population of Iraq.

When even Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz, the commander of your ground forces in Iraq acknowledges this issue, it might help to pay attention. Particularly when he adds,

"I just can't guarantee that everyone will be able to go to a poll in total safety," he said. "I cannot put a bubble around every person walking from their home to the polling site."

Because, while we're dealing with tired clichés and bad metaphors, that "bubble" General Metz is talking about is so obviously wrapped around you, chump.