Bush's Iraq problem

I've been saying this, but not nearly as well:

So we as a nation — and I’m speaking of the collective awareness, here, the wisdom of the crowd — knew only that we were invading a foreign country. We didn’t know why, and we didn’t know what was going to happen next. And today, more than three years on, we still don’t know why and we still don’t know what’s going to happen next.

Now, there are many conflicting opinions about the root cause of this colossal failure of leadership. ...

I don’t have the foggiest idea why the President failed to lead the country into war, or once into it why he failed to lead us through it. Hell, given the state of the press and the vitriolic hatred of the President since his first disputed and messy election, maybe nothing he did or said could have gotten the job done. You can’t inform or persuade people who aren’t listening.

But that doesn’t excuse not trying.