The past two weeks' events have eroded public confidence in the Bush administration's handling of Iraq, and rightly so. Still, the deterioration of the situation threatens to lower the bar for success and lead people to underestimate the full scope of the problems facing American policy. Before the war, the president clearly stated that his goal was the creation of a unified, stable, democratic Iraq. Some doubted that such an outcome would be desirable, others that it was possible; still others (I, for one) simply doubted that the Bush team had the wherewithal to pull it off.

Writing in the March 29 issue of Newsweek, Jonathan Alter described Democrats as "over the top" in their constant references to the president's dishonesty. "Because Bush & Co. were as shocked as anyone at the absence of WMD" in Iraq, he says, "that's more in the category of grotesque hype than outright lie." For a real "example of dishonesty and, yes, corruption at high levels" we need to look to Medicare, where Chief Actuary Rick Foster calculated that the bill would cost over $150 billion more than the administration was claiming and was kept silent only through the threat that he'd be fired if he released his work to the Congress.