The familiar smell of what happens

In terms of how resources were used in toppling the regime that was in place in Iraq in 2003 -- plus the subsequent bloody occupation -- from an American voter's standpoint, how would you score the results in 2012?

If you are a starve-the-beast Republican banker the results are mostly sweet. Since taxes were cut during the war it built up a monster sized debt. As the truth never mattered in the first place -- beware of weapons of mass destruction! -- now you can blame today’s eye-popping debt on social programs and insist on massive cuts to the very programs you have always hated. In your view the deaths and hardships of the war were collateral damage ... hey, shit happens.

On the other hand, if you are an unemployed school teacher who is a liberal Democrat, the results are mostly sour. You’ll never understand why your younger brother who lives in a veterans hospital had to lose half of his body in a war over a pack of lies that did absolutely nothing to make Americans safer anywhere ... there are always reason why shit happens. 

Now, with the slowly improving American economy still on wobbly legs, the Republican candidate Mitt Romney threatens to go to war with Iran. Of course, he wants to cut taxes, too.

Smell familiar?