There’s a clear madness to Bush’s plan to boost troop levels in Iraq. He wants to maintain the fiction that his Iraq misadventure is something other than a tragedy, but all the troop surge will do is dig us deeper into the hole.

He’s going off all on his own on this one. Support for his move is so low – a Jan. 5-7 Gallup poll put it at 12% – that it will probably push his approval ratings down under the 30% level. That’s a trivial concern when compared to what the war will cost us in human life, spiritually, morally, and financially. But it does raise a worrying question: Is Bush losing it?

He’s always been so adroit at manipulating public opinion (well, he used to be). So adept at appearing to be a folksy, regular guy when in reality his policies have benefited the few at the expense of the many. But with the escalation he’s making it clear that he he’s willing to leave public opinion behind, willing to indulge his vanity above all. His plan suggests that the surge just might win George’s War, when even his generals (that is, the last round of them before the current crew) indicated it was a poor idea. There’s something more than a little delusional about that.

Ah, what a dark vision this man is. In a nation of 300 million people, how did we end up with him as president?