I hate to say I told you so, but my skepticism about the Iraqi government's deal was well-founded

Yesterday, I wondered if BushCo would spin this as a big win. It wasn't. That didn't take long.

Sunni Arab politicians refused to end their boycott of Iraq's Shiite-led government today despite a broadbrush deal aimed at bridging the country's bitter sectarian divide.

Bush was cautiously optimistic, he said. I was recklessly pessimistic.

...a leading member of the National Concord Front, the main Sunni Arab bloc, said it would continue to boycott Mr Maliki's government until its demands are fulfilled.

Khalaf al-Alayan, a leading politician and lawmaker from the bloc which quit the government on August 1, said this:

"The government is trying to show to the world that it is working, but it is a failure and has to go. It does not have credibility."

So that's what the surge has been all about: Failure! This is what our men and women are dying for?

Why, it's almost as though this whole shebang were some kind of an act! Nah, too mild. A dog and pony show? A badly executed tap dance?

Even Omar Abdul Sattar, a leader of Mr Hashemi's Iraqi Islamic Party, dismissed the agreement as stage-managed.

"It was an irrelevant media production," he said.

Okay, yeah. That'll do. A media production for which CNN and MSNBC already have extensive libraries of dramatic music stings and war logos. And, gosh, Biff, my mom has a barn! Whaddya say we take it on the road?

Too late. We already did. Sigh.