Say what you like, Derb, and rant your anti-Bush rants however long and passionately you wish to, but your accusation is specious. There has been no mission creep in Iraq. The mission is what it was before hostilities began — disarming Saddam, removing him from power, and replacing a terrorist regime with a democratic state that will offer a new set of possibilities for the stunted politics of the Middle East. The problem is that making the mission work has been far harder and more painful than many people anticipated. Now, I understand this is a little complicated, and doesn’t resolve into a nice mathematical formula, so your hamster may need to take a few minutes to explain it all to you.