Iraq’s new democracy was always suspect. I recall more than a few Iraqi bloggers commenting on the process, claiming their new Parliament was filled with corrupt expatriates and elitists, and that their ballot choices were dictated by sectarian political, tribal and religious leaders rather than rising independently as popular grassroots candidates. On top of that, when support from the Bush administration wavered, top leaders got replaced. It displayed all the hallmarks of puppetry at the pinnacle.

But none of it was surprising to anyone with an understanding of Iraq and of occupations past, who closely watchied developments unfold. After all, in our own democracy, it took 130 years to nominally grant all citizens suffrage - including a bloody Civil War in the interim - and actual ballot access for all wasn’t realized for at least 175 years. In Iraq, the Bush administration compressed all that into a two year timeframe, and ordered them to produce critical results within another two years.

History holds no record of any occupation achieving success within such a miniscule timeframe. Within a country known for its deep sectarian divides, it was madness to suggest success could come at such breakneck speed.

Yet Bush’s strategy throughout was to promise major advances within six months, then punt for another six months after certain benchmarks were achieved. That sales approach barely succeeded until the government was seated and an incomplete Constitution was constructed. Popular enthusiasm in Iraq for the project was lost in the wake of the Abu Ghraib brutalities. And the new government has displayed mostly paralysis as a result of the ongoing sectarian tensions.

Three principal needs of the citizenry have not been sufficiently met to offer any real glimmer of hope that this process can succeed. Their infrastructure remains dysfunctional. Too many remain unemployed or underemployed. And the distribution of the profits from Iraq’s chief resource - oil - has yet to reach a major bloc: the Sunnis, leaving them stranded economically.

Now that paralysis is being blamed on one man alone, Prime Minister Maliki. Imagine Jim Henson blaming Kermit the Frog for failing to deliver funny lines.

Now imagine how to stage the dark comedy to make it worse.

A noted Republican PR machine is selling The Answer to Everything-Wrong-In-Iraq.

Rightwing pundits, possibly some on the GOP payroll, start broadcasting the message. Soon, other medoa outlets, mainstream ones, carry the managed message as fact.

Maliki IS impotent. So is everyone else in the Iraq government. None of them has the answer to sectarian divisions that go back many generations. None can fix the problems unleashed from Pandora’s Box by the executive decisions of George Bush. Problems magnified by CIA operatives at Abu Ghraib, by the gross judgment errors of now-retired Coalition Provisional Authority head Paul Bremer, by the military-lite approaches of Donald Rumsfeld, by civilian contractors operating without oversight.

But while that PR machine cranks out the lie that Kermit the Frog is writing bad lines, another is turning loose another message issued by an Iraqi war veteran who lost his legs in Iraq. Utilizing imagery from the 9-11 attacks that have nothing to do with Iraq. Because that old lie still has 2 out of 5 Americans convincingly deceived.

As Glenn Greenwald points out, this is ‘par for the course’ inside the Beltway. Politicians, lobbyists, pr firms and the media portray facts just as Hollywood does. Simulated reality. Only the blood, the wounds, the deaths, the torture, the 2 million refugees, the grief and the anger are real.

This is par for a very crooked course.

The question is, once again, with the PR campaigns now fully exposed, will the adoring fans of Pandora Box Bush accept the truth? Or will they join the puppetmasters in denouncing Kermit the Frog in pursuit of a perpetual war against reality?

Update: And now for something completely different. Not.

Update 2: Sigh. Stay the crooked course.