Petraeus' predecessor at Centcom, Admiral William Fallon, resigned abruptly last month after 41 years of service. Fallon wasn't keen on Bush's Iraq policy nor was he a big booster of the saber rattling directed in Iran's direction. He and Petraeus didn't exactly see eye to anus. So, Fallon was given the boot.

One senior civilian official described the relationship between the two men to "The Washington Post:" "Bad relations? That's the understatement of the century. If you think Armageddon was a riot, that's one way of looking at it."

Petraeus' replacement is Lt. General Raymond T. Odierno, a guy who, according to McClatchy Newspapers, "came to the post under a cloud of controversy after some charged that his strong-arm approach to warfare lacked the nuance that counterinsurgency required.

"Indeed, in his previous post as the commander of U.S. troops in northern Iraq, he called for aggressive tactics against the insurgency, at times inflaming tensions between U.S. troops and Iraqis."

In laymen's terms, the guy's supposed to be a gung-ho mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging Neanderthal. Or, in BushSpeak: "quite the catch!"

Bush's reshuffling of his deck of Jokers is his nice way of saying "screw you" to the next president, if it's a Democrat. (If McCain wins, no problem. He'll probably re-form the Rough Riders and have a real go of it.)

As Robert Burns of the Associated Press put it: "The next president taking office in January would not be compelled to keep either Petraeus or Odierno, but normally the lineup of senior commanders -- as well as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- is not changed with administrations.

"'There is no precedent in U.S. tradition for a new president changing these kinds of officers,' said Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and an occasional adviser to Petraeus. 'For an incoming president to change them would be a real statement.'"

With Iraq stuck in mass mayhem mode, how could BushCo. possibly make it worse? Easy. Send Condoleezza Rice to Iraq and have her diss anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Visiting The Green Zone in-between shellings last weekend, she flashed her patented Hohner harmonica smile when asked about al-Sadr's threat to lift his Mahdi Army's self-imposed cease-fire. She scoffed: "I know he's sitting in Iran. I guess it's all out war for anybody but him. I guess that's the message; his followers can go to their deaths and he's in Iran."

Two days after Condi's taunt came an AP headline: "US deputy commander calls on al-Sadr to stop attacks in Iraq."

Three days later saw the headline: "Sadr Tells Forces Not To Attack Iraqis." The text of the article described al-Sadr advising his followers to focus their firepower on driving out the "occupation forces," meaning the U.S. military.

You can't say our diplomatic style doesn't yield big results.

While dwelling on diplomacy, it seems that BushCo. can't decide what country to attack next. Iran is tempting. But Syria has more syllables. What's an imperialistic bunch of handjobs to do?

On Friday, Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, admitted that the Pentagon is planning for "potential military courses of action" as one of several options against Iran because of its "increasingly lethal and malign influence" in Iraq. Making matters worse, he said that with a straight face while wearing long pants.

On Thursday, a cargo ship contracted by the U.S. fired "several bursts" of warning shots at "two fast boats" that approached it in international waters off the Iranian coast. While nobody identified the owner of the boats, officials hinted that they were from a country that sounded like "Hi, man."

Because the boats were fast and not slow, they were not definitively ID'd. As we all know, we're much better at targeting slow civilians on foot.

Mullen also accused Iran of increasing arms and training support to Iraqi insurgents, admitting he had "no smoking gun" proof...only the smoke coming out of his ass.

On the Syrian front, America declared that Israel had bombed the beejeezus out of a nuclear reactor last September, built by Syrians in cahoots with North Koreans. Rumors swirled that America had videotape of the reactor before it went kablooie. The tape never surfaced. Stills of a square building were presented as part of a power-point presentation, however, presumably because View Master reels are considered passe and also quite expensive.

No nuclear materials were found at the bombed-out site. The U.S. waited seven months to make its accusations. (National security reasons, of course.) Two senior intelligence officials termed the threat of Syria making a nuke as being "low confidence." Reuters reported that a photograph showed people who "appeared to be of Korean descent" at the site. Not too many folks were bowled over by Bush's threatening that the Syrians should "come clean."

"Salon's" Glenn Greenwald summed it up nicely: "There are all sorts of reasons...for extreme skepticism here. After flamboyantly announcing that they had actual video of North Korean nuclear scientists inside the Syrian building, it turned out that the 'video' was merely a compilation of rather unrevealing still photographs patched together, in Colin-Powell-at-the-UN fashion, with ominous narration making accusations with a level of certainty completely unmatched by the 'evidence' itself."

Next week? The Pentagon will offer a Mumenshanz presentation.

In terms of our old stand-by war, Afghanistan, these headlines deftly sum up our forward momentum: "Afghan President Criticizes U.S. on Conduct of War," "Afghan President Safe After Fleeing Assassination Attempt" and "U.S. Marines Deploying In Afghanistan For the First Time In Years."

Looks like a surge is in order.

With all these wars on the horizon, how will our troops cope? Pretty nicely, according to Admiral Mullen. In terms of Iran, he admitted it would be "extremely stressing" for U.S. troops but added, "It would be a mistake to think that we are out of combat capability."

Why, sure it would. I mean, the amount of fresh troops is, uh, surging. According to "The Guardian," "The US army doubled its use of 'moral waivers' for enlisted soldiers last year to cope with the demands of the Iraq war, allowing sex offenders, people convicted of making terrorist threats, and child abusers into the military, new records showed."

(In this army, if someone says they'll cover your rear...don't let 'em.)

These new members will help us fight the good fight...because a lot of our veteran troops are having a tough time of it. In a McClatchy Newspaper story entitled "VA Lying About Number of Veteran Suicides, Senator Charges," Senator Patty Murray (D. WA.) produced a series of e-mails showing 12,000 troop suicide attempts last year, as opposed to the less than 800 the Veterans' Administration claimed.

Murray also pointed to a RAND Corp. study released two weeks ago showing that 320,000 Iraq and Afghanistan vets have sustained traumatic brain injury and another 300,000 are suffering from PTSD.

"They can be walking time bombs for decades," Murray said.

Or, in BushSpeak: "We're talkin' major success."

So, who can we turn to for the truth? Well, surely all those retired military men who now give expert opinions on broadcast and cable new, right? Uh, not really.

Last weekend, "The New York Times" revealed that a host of them are actually shills for the Pentagon, telling the American people exactly what BushCo. wants us all to think. Amazingly, the story was not picked up by too many broadcast or cable news channels. I wonder why.

When not destroying other sovereign nations, Bush is doing a dandy job obliterating our own. Plugging NAFTA while in the forgotten city of New Orleans, Bush declared: "First of all, we're not in a recession. We're in a slowdown."

The extent of this slowdown can be assessed by last week's headlines: "Bank of America Profits Drop 77 Percent," "Durable Goods Orders Fall For Third Straight Month, Longest Stretch Since 2001 Recession," "Sam's Club, Costco Limit Rice Purchases As Prices Rise," "Americans Hoard Food As Industry Seeks Regs," "Fearing Shortages, Asian Market Shoppers In Sacramento Buy Up Supplies," "The End of Cheap Food?" "New Home Sales Plunge To Lowest Level In 16 Years," "Foreign Buyers Snap Up U.S. Real Estate," "Stocks Decline As Consumer Confidence Falls To 26-Year Low" and "Many States Appear To Be In A Recession."

This is the kind of slowdown that's usually associated with a toe tag.

But have no fear, fellow Tobacco Roadeans; those tax rebate checks are riding to our rescue. "Starting Monday, the effects of the stimulus will begin to reach millions of households across our country," Bush squeaked from the South Lawn of the White House last Friday.

"The money is going to help Americans offset the high prices we're seeing at the gas pump, the grocery store, and also gives our economy a boost to help us pull out of this economic slowdown."

Then, he scampered back off into the Bizarro World in his head where bad am good and good am bad.

Speaking of Bizarro World, Bush's Republican quislings were hard at work last week, as well, vetoing an Anti-Pay Discrimination bill as well as a bill that would allow recounts of votes in hinky elections.

Running to become the new President of Bizarro World, Senator John McCain is really showing his stuff. Before visiting the Dresden-like city of New Orleans, he expressed doubt that the lower 9th ward should be rebuilt. You know, the poor section.

Redefining the word "waffle," the slightly askew straight-talker intoned "That is why we need to go back is to have a conversation about what to do -rebuild it, tear it down, you know, whatever it is." (It's only a matter of time before he's saying stuff like "Is our children learning?")

By the time he actually arrived in the Big Easy, McCain couldn't remember ever talking about the 9th ward. He did, however, weigh in on the day Katrina hit. "I'm just saying I would've landed my airplane at the nearest Air Force base and come over personally," he declared. For the record, the day Katrina hit, McCain and Bush were honoring McCain's birthday by eating cake - Air Force One idling in the background.

Also for the record, McCain voted against just about every bill that proposed aid to New Orleans post-Katrina. His reasoning? The legislation included "wasteful, pork-barrel spending."

McCain was even more impressive in the blighted city of Youngstown, Ohio where he stood before a nearly shuttered factory and extolled the benefits of global free trade to a city that has seen its population shrink by 50% since the closure of its steel mills.

They am all happy in Bizarro world. Free trade am the bestest.

The factually challenged McCain also declared that Barack Obama has been endorsed by Hamas. "I think it's very clear who Hamas wants to be the next president of the United States...I think that people should understand that I will be Hamas' worst nightmare. If senator Obama is favored by Hamas I think people can make judgments accordingly."

McCain's campaign went onto say that Obama's non-existent endorsement by Hamas and his dalliance with two ageing members of The (long dead) Weather Underground were going to be regular political points in the campaign, terming them Obama's terrorist connections.

No word yet if either Obama or Clinton will harp on McCain's ties to "The Flat Earth Society," "The League of Luddites" or "The Unicorn Riders of America."

Despite the dark times we're in, folks, there are always small gems of unintentional humor to be found in this great nation of ours. Something to put a smile on our face without a beer chaser.

F'rinstance, in Jonesville, South Carolina, Pastor Roger Byrd offered the following message on the sign outside his Jonesville Church of God. "Obama, Osama, Hmmmm, are they brothers?"

Byrd said that the message wasn't meant to be racial or political.

"It's simply to cause people to realize and to see what possibly could happen if we were to get someone in there that does not believe in Jesus Christ," he said.

When asked if he believes that Barack Obama is Muslim, Byrd said, "I don't know. See it asks a question: Are they brothers? In other words, is he Muslim? I don't know. He says he's not. I hope he's not. But I don't know. And it's just something to try to stir people's minds. It was never intended to hurt feelings or to offend anybody."

Next week, Byrd plans on running a sign: "Who would Jesus shit on?"

Also: earlier this week on Yahoo! News' accurate reflection of the interests of this nation, their infamous "Most E-Mailed News" section, these two headlines battled for first place.

"Penis Theft Panic Hits City."

"Masturbation May Prevent Prostate Cancer."

You could see why people would be concerned.

Perhaps John Lennon summed up the feelings of a lot of us when he said: "The more real you get, the more unreal everything else is."

Welcome to the Unreal Follies of 2008.