BURYING THE LEDE

If you're a president who got elected largely on a promise to get troops the hell out of Iraq, do you know what's a politically stupid move? Choosing the latter half of August to get the last of those combat troops out.

And if you alienated a lot of voters by bailing out car companies, you know what's an even stupider move? Not urging GM to pick a better time than -- again -- the latter half of August to announce the initial public offering that will allow it to repay a big chunk of its bailout money

And you know what's an even stupider move? Allowing both of these events to take place in the same news cycle.

Oh, and for good measure, both happened to be announced in the middle of a guano-tsunami stirred up by the wingnut media that's driving everything else out of the public's consciousness.

Look, I know there's a limit to how much the White House controls events, but, by accident and design, these may be the two worst-timed rollouts of good news in modern political history.