Two paragraphs that sum up the Bush administration. Both of them are from an Agence France Press write-up of an interview with Secretary of State and worst-national-security-adviser-of-all-time Condoleezza Rice. First:

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acknowledged Monday that the Bush administration fell short of goals it had set for itself but maintained that history would prove it right.

Second:

The war on terror has failed to eliminate Al-Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden, but the US-led coalition and Iraq are close to defeating the group’s Iraq branch, she said.

There was no Al Qaeda in Iraq until the U.S. invaded. If you were writing an end-of-the-year performance evaluation and an employee said something like "I didn’t complete my essential task but I came close to fixing a huge error I made that complicated my essential task," how would you rate that fellow?

Crossposted to The Streak.