Tom Tomorrow has it wrong, I think — Superman isn’t working for Halliburton. He seems to be undercutting them on price. This is not going to sit well with Dick Cheney.

The Bush Administration complains that we aren’t hearing the good news from Iraq. Their critics point to rising levels of violence that are impossible to ignore.

The truth about the situation in Iraq is more complex than we imagine. For the most part, I don’t think we see even the tip of the iceberg — the news we get is a bit of frost scraped from the tip of the iceberg.

This page lists many kinds of data from Iraq from May 2003 to May 2005. There seem to be some trends — some good, some bad. (I found the graphic labeled “View the Op-Chart” easier to understand than the text data.)

More than two years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, Iraq remains a complex mix of tragedy and hope. To give a sense of the ebb and flow, this chart shows data for three key months: May 2003 (the first full month after the fall of Baghdad), June 2004 (the last month before the Coalition Authority gave way to the interim Iraqi government) and May 2005.

Karl Rove’s attempt last week to use the 9/11 attacks on America to divide and conquer is old news, but I’m slow. Speaking to the New York State Conservative Party, Rove said:

Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers.

Al Franken says:

The thing I will never forgive this administration for is that we were united after 9/11 and they divided us, for their own petty political purposes. And they’re continuing to do it.

Rove continued:

In the wake of 9/11, conservatives believed it was time to unleash the might and power of the United States military against the Taliban; in the wake of 9/11, liberals believed it was time to… submit a petition.

Actually, on September 12, 2001, Donald Rumsfeld argued against attacking the Taliban. He wanted to attack Iraq, instead.

Government terrorism experts knew almost immediately that it was Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda that had attacked us. Although no one had ever launched an attack quite like the 9/11 hijackings, the experts recognized many elements of al Qaeda’s unique modus operandi. For weeks, intelligence channels had been listening to elevated “chatter” from al Qaeda about “something big.” The passengers lists of the hijacked planes contained the names of known al Qaeda operatives.

Rumsfeld was in the Pentagon when it was hit. And yet, he didn’t want to fight the Taliban. He wanted war in Iraq.

At This Modern World, Billmon says Rove’s lashing out desperately, like a punch drunk boxer:

[Like Mike Tyson], Rove isn’t just telegraphing his punches, he’s also displaying the depths of his fear. The rhetorical ear chewing and head butting is a clear sign the champ doesn’t have the juice any more, and knows it. Rove is trying to get by on sheer intimidation. He’s pushing as many primordial conservative buttons as he can — leaning on them, in fact — in hopes he can once again make the dreaded liberals the story, not the march of folly currently sinking into the Iraqi quicksands.