Half-Bakered

(on the Iraq Study Group Report, Dec. 6, 2006)

They tout it, toast it, trumpet it
Amid the media din,
Veneer and vaunt and varnish it,
In tinkering with sin.

The botching bungler's broker, Baker, rather than abort
The mission misbegot,
Atrocity's apologist,
He stirs the blood-stained pot.

Half-baked, half-assed, half-hearted, and half-truthed,
The propaganda-peddling pander speaks
Of a 'Way Forward' that goes in circles,
While all corruption reeks.

He blames the bombed, he mars the maimed,
He chides the puppet king
(Al-Maliki, powerless yet responsible)
To scapegoat, shackle him.

The White House half-wit hums and haws:
"I take it seriously," and mulls
The "interesting proposals"
'Till darkness dimness dulls.

The speeches, summits screech in shame,
The streams of ink recite,
The palliative to calamity,
Too little, late, and trite.

December 2006