Iraq: like Indiana in the summertime.

Some Republican senators took a little jaunt to Iraq and were startled, positively startled by how wonderful it all was. This was concrete proof that we were making terrific progress there, they said, and that we needed to keep up the good work.

John McCain, the Republican presidential hopeful, and three Congressional colleagues described a local market as a happy little nirvana full of welcoming Iraqis. Representative Mike Pence, an Indiana Republican, announced that it was "like a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime."

Yes, it certainly was. Like a normal outdoor market in Indiana where security is handled by a hundred soldiers in armored Humvees, where American attack helicopters circle overhead, where sharpshooters are posted on roofs and where everyone wears bulletproof vests.

If that's Indiana in the summertime, I'll think I'll stay in Brooklyn, thanks.