Senate Democrats, wanting to reopen debate on Iraq on the Senate floor, are being rebuffed by Tennessee's very own [retiring] Bill Frist, stating that another debate in Iraq would be "another bad summer rerun." This, on the heels of what Jack Cafferty reminds everyone: that while we are mesmerized by the proceedings in Israel and Lebanon, over 100 people a day are dying in Iraq as the country descends into the heart of a "sub-human nightmare."

"Bad summer re-run," huh?

This sort of glib talk hearkens back to the run-up to the Iraq war when, in a moment of surprising candor,

Andrew Card told The New York Times last week, ``From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August.''

Maybe the fact that Israel chose now to begin its campaign against Hezbollah is really screwing with the administration because they haven't figured out how to effectively market their message. Condi Rice has stated flatly that

“I could have gotten on a plane and rushed over and started shuttling, and it wouldn’t have been clear what I was shuttling to do,” she said.

Folks, this is the official, beautiful mind whose job and charter it is to be the voice of diplomatic reason. What, did she have no idea that she might be called upon to formulate a response? Did she somehow miss the memo about the war between the Arab world and the land of Israel? I'd think that if I was Secretary of State, I'd have a ready response.

I'm still waiting to hear something on our side of the Atlantic which inspires confidence. Between Frist's trivialization of having a dialogue on the Senate floor regarding Iraq and Rice admitting that she has no idea what her job is in Israel/Lebanon, we're not off to a good start. (Full disclosure: I didn't expect much in the first place, but even this fails to meet my low expectations)

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As for the President? This analysis provides an interesting summary of the discussion caught on open mic between Bush and Blair at the G8. Never mind that he uttered an expletive. Far more offensive (at least to Juan Cole) was the thought process at work:

...Bush thinks that Nasrullah of Hizbullah takes direct orders from Damascus. And he thinks that if Bashar al-Asad orders Hizbullah to stop firing its little katyushas and give back the two Israeli soldiers, everything will suddenly settle down.

It is an astonishingly simple-minded view of the situation, painted in black and white and making assumptions about who is who's puppet and what the Israeli motivations are. Israel doesn't appear as a protagonist. It is purely reactive. Stop provoking it, and it suddenly stops its war.

Since Israel is just being provoked and has no ambitions of its own, in this reading, it is useless to begin with a ceasefire. That treats the two sides as both provoking one another. Here, only Hizbullah matters, so you lean on Syria to lean on it, and, presto, peace breaks out.

It is a little window into the superficial, one-sided mind of the man, who has for six years been way out of his depth.

I come away from it shaken and trembling.

You and me both, Professor Cole.

Israel may hold the right to defend herself (as does Lebanon, for that matter). Yet, as we watch our leadership stand flat-footed, it is becoming painfully obvious that we have no coherent message to send, nor even to market.