Hook em Rummy

Once again today, Donald Rumsfeld trotted out the Munich analogy when talking about war opponents. In Rummyworld, Osama bin Laden is Hitler and war opponents are all Neville Chamberlains trying to take the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia and give it to Germany.

Of course, Rumsfeld isn't serious. But his comments raise the question of what is the best analogy for the American situation in Iraq.

Let's try sports.

What's happening to the United States in Iraq is the equivalent of the $200 million New York Yankees finishing in last place in a Class A league like the South Atlantic League. Or the Texas Longhorns being regularly beaten by lousy high school football teams. That's how bad the U. S. is doing in Iraq.

Of course, highly successful sports organizations like the Yankees and Texas Longhorns are subject to constant criticism and enormous pressures even if they're winning at the highest levels. If they were doing anywhere nearly as badly as the Bush administration is doing in Iraq, these elite sports organizations would have cleaned house several times, rethought their commitment of resources, and revamped all their strategies.

They certainly wouldn't have been dumb enough to "stay the course."