"Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many," write Richard Cheney and Liz Cheney in the Wall Street Journal, describing a "willfully blind" foreign policy leading to "thousands of slaughtered Iraqis." They mean Barack Obama. Who else would they mean?

The sectarian violence in and around Iraq's capital continued this afternoon when a car bomb killed 12 people and wounded 30 in Sadr City, a Shiite district of Baghdad. While no one has yet taken responsibility for the attack, past bombings in the area have been the work of Sunni militants.

At least 48 Sunni militants were killed in or around Baghdad last night, adding to already substantive fears of a full-out sectarian war developing in Iraq. As of now, at least 170 U.S. soldiers are armed for combat to protect the embassy in Baghdad, though President Obama says they will not engage in direct fighting.

The Associated Press has confirmed that President Obama will deploy 275 military troops to Iraq to combat the growing Sunni Islamist revolt in the country.

"Now is not the time to re-litigate either the decision to invade Iraq in 2003 or the decision to withdraw from it in 2011," William Kristol and Frederick Kagan write. Agreed! This is no time for blood-soaked proven idiot monsters to crawl back out and try to talk to us about war policy. Shut up forever.

The White House is considering sending U.S. special operations forces to Iraq as the country's northwest collapses under the weight of a Sunni Islamist revolt, unnamed officials told the AP this afternoon.

Sunni militants captured a key northern Iraqi town, Tal Afar, early Monday morning. Only hours before, Prime Minister Nouri Al-Malaki tried to inspire volunteers who've joined the Iraqi security forces: "We will march and liberate every inch [the militants] defaced, from the country's northernmost point to the southernmost point," he said.

The State Department announced Sunday that an undisclosed number of personnel at the American Embassy in Baghdad would be temporarily relocated as Islamic militants advance through Iraq.

The Islamic insurgents that captured two major cities in northern Iraq last week have claimed on Twitter to have executed 1,700 Iraqi government soldiers, supporting their claim with graphic photos.

The Wall Street Journal warns of "The Terrorist Army Marching on Baghdad." Once it's an army, can you still call it "terrorist?" Either armies are different from terrorists, or all armies are terrorists. Consistency, please. Arguments on this point are welcome.

Neocons' first move in their renewed offensive against the reality-based community: Get the year of the Iraq invasion wrong.

At a press conference this afternoon, President Obama said that he's still considering responses to the escalating crisis in Iraq, where Sunni militants are gaining ground by the hour. While officials have said that he's considering airstrikes, Obama was clear at the conference that any military decision would be contingent on the Iraqi government's plan for follow-up action.

Sunni insurgents advancing towards Baghdad took two more towns in Iraq last night, seizing control of Saadiyah and Jalawla as Iraqi security forces reportedly abandoned their posts without a fight.

In the past week, Al Qaeda-connected Islamic militants have attacked multiple cities across Iraq and are rapidly consolidating power in the nation that the United States spent so much blood and treasure trying to stabilize. The situation is dire and dynamic. Here's some of what we know.

Iraq moved closer to a full-out sectarian conflict Thursday morning when Kurdish forces took over the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, adding to the mass confusion since Al-Qaeda influenced insurgents began seizing Iraqi cities this week. The U.S. has refused to intervene at this point.

Islamist insurgents seized another city, Tikrit, in Iraq today, just 24 hours after taking Iraq's third-largest city, Mosul. With Iraqi government forces more unstable than ever, the militants are rapidly advancing towards Baghdad.

Mosul—Iraq's third-largest city, urbane center of the nation's northern regions, built on the remains of the once-great Assyrian empire, made free through the sacrifices of thousands of Iraqis, Kurds, and Americans—fell to a gang of Islamist insurgents Monday.

Eleven years ago today, we got Krauthammered. Never forget.

Perhaps it was really a lesson on Beckett-like absurdism in our modern political culture. Perhaps it was just a moronic dipshit with 1.5 brain cells and a Radio Shack catalog. Whatever the explanation, the accidental boom in a suicide-bombing class made for good copy in today's Times:

When a man looks at his wife and four (!) children, what he really sees is the black iron prison surrounding him. How does he break out? In the case of Utah dad Ken Sullivan, the answer is the same red planet that has inspired humanity throughout history. Mars!