One who's been there. One who hasn't.

Via Canadian Cynic we get another Tony Snow job.

QUESTION: Two questions on public perceptions. Are you saying that four years into this war, the American people don’t have an accurate picture of what’s going on in Iraq?

TONY SNOW: I think, Wendell, four years into a war, the picture constantly changes. The picture that we saw in April of 2003 was different than the one we saw a year ago. If you think a year ago, Wendell, there was considerable optimism, Democrats and Republicans both coming back from the region saying, you know, we think things are going okay. We’ve had the election. They did not anticipate the, I guess, eruption of sectarian violence.

Think Progress details just a few of the open source details of sectarian violence which occurred before Snow's "year ago".

Who didn't anticipate? Bushco, that's who. Iraq, the quagmire, was forecast by someone who knew what it would turn into as far back as 1992.

I think we'd still be there, we'd be like a dinosaur in a tar pit, we could not have gotten out and we'd still be the occupying power and we'd be paying one hundred percent of all the costs to administer all of Iraq.

General H. Norman Schwarzkopf
In response to the question: Why didn't you go to Baghdad and finish the job? (1991 Gulf War)
Aired January, 1996

"Up the middle" Norm is "constructively" on the side of the enemy. It's not nice to leave quotes around for the wanker class to trip over.