Things are going swimmingly

In Iraq, says Dick Cheney:

The Vice President today, in a Mississippi radio interview with an obviously friendly host:

INTERVIEWER: . . . You know, I look at this, and every once in a while, we'll see a story, Mr. Vice President, things like an amusement park opens in Iraq or in Baghdad, which is totally counter to what we're hearing over here, as far as the marketplaces being open, the schools, and things such as that. But I saw a story several weeks ago about an amusement center maybe over there, and I'm thinking this is not what you get in today's media.

VICE PRESIDENT: No, that's true. It's -- what gets covered obviously is bad news. That's -- you know, if everything is going swimmingly, then that's not news, so it doesn't get the kind of attention.

Swimmingly just for you, Dick.


Two-year-old Ali Hussein is pulled from the rubble of his
family’s home in the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City in Baghdad,
Iraq, April 29, 2008. (Karim Kadim/AP photo)

And:

WASHINGTON -- The number of soldiers forced to remain in the Army involuntarily under the military's controversial "stop-loss" program has risen sharply since the Pentagon extended combat tours last year, officials said Thursday.

[snip]

However, many soldiers subjected to the stop-loss policy consider it a backdoor draft. Critics argue that once soldiers have completed the enlistment period they agreed to, they should be allowed to return home. The involuntary retention program is so unpopular that it helped inspire a recent movie called "Stop-Loss."

The number of soldiers held in the Army under the stop-loss program reached a high in March 2005 of 15,758. That number steadily declined through May 2007, when it hit 8,540. But since then, the number of soldiers subjected to stop-loss orders began to increase again, reaching 12,235 in March 2008.

And: OEF/OIF Post-Combat Suicides May Exceed Combat Deaths:

The number of suicides among veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may exceed the combat death toll because of inadequate mental health care, the U.S. government's top psychiatric researcher said.

Because a barrel of crude has shot past $126?