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President Bush, according to Newsweek, is going to take longer than expected to get up to speed on the war in Iraq. Briefing the president has been limited to short 45-minute sessions that won’t “overload the president’s schedule,” starting with “a basic level of strategy” and gradually introducing him to various aspects of Iraq policy.

My mom and dad had a long-standing joke between them; when Pop would return home, Mom would gauge how tired he was by it. She'd ask "Wuhk hahd, or hahdly wuhkin'?" It was a quote from some old radio show (probably one that wouldn't pass PC muster these days). If Pop was exhausted and needed quiet time, he'd reply "Wuhk hahd" and head for his easy chair, and Mom would leave him be and maybe fix him a drink. If it had been a "light" day, he'd reply "hahdly wuhkin'" and she'd put up with him pestering and teasing her in the kitchen, trying to cadge tastes before dinner. He had health issues and had to stay on an even keel and avoid stress, so they came up with a system of signals so that he could let her know he needed some down time to recover a little before dinner.

These days, it seems we have a president who consistently follows the "hahdly wuhkin'" model. He's the king of vacations, the duke of empty promises, and now he's dragging his feet and appears to be throwing the executive-branch equivalent of a hissy over the Iraq Study Group's recommendations. First he ignores them, then he begrudgingly admits he might, eventually, think about looking at them, and so on.

Is it just me, or is anyone else bothered by his inability to "get up to speed on the war Iraq" 3 years after declaring "Mission Accomplished" in his manly, package-enhancing flight suit?

And is a 45-minute briefing session really dicatated by schedule constraints, or by the limits of his attention and comprehension?