Sorry to follow up the Oscars with more bum-out material, but this meme bears propogation:

Marines seem to be genuinely surprised that the Iraqis aren't surrendering. This bespeaks of a horrible misleading load of bull coming from their intel people at the near end, and the administration/CIA at the other... There was a point, early on, where Rumsfeld and cronies were telling General Franks (several months ago) that his request for a TOTAL force size of 250K was 'way out of line.' Ari Fleischer actually said that Franks wasn't invited to the next strategy meeting because "the president doesn't have time to listen to what the president doesn't want to hear." We hear Rumsfeld and crew have been turning down requests for additional combat power in theater, and perhaps even advancing schedules with the 'decap strike' to the point that the 4ID couldn't even make it onto dirt. Given the trouble we seem to be having with even the forces we have now, how can Mr. Rumsfeld and company explain their earlier intransigence, and more importantly, the apparent massive lag in introducing what appear to be needed reinforcements?

This cometh from the comments over at dailykos, quick becoming one of my favorite spots to read and post. Rumsfield. He ain't pretty no more. Also, I no longer trust the US media. BBC all the way for me. They let reporters blog, after a fashion (unlike the goons at CNN). They don't have press blackouts and they aren't trying to protect their home population from negative coverage -- few in the UK support this war, so there's no reason to try and project a rosy picture.