In DOOFUSbunker, "carefully choreographed meetings"; Iraq Study Group flunks, "new way forward" on hold.

Dubya dances around with a bunch of retired generals who give him a "blunt and dismal assessment" of the dumb old study group's conclusions; nobody wanted them messing around with things anyway.

But the generals agree...

...the Army and Marine Corps both need to be bigger, and also need bigger budgets.

Go figure, huh?

Coming amid growing public discontent with the war and the defeat of his party in last month's congressional elections, the president's very public review of his Iraq policy is expected to culminate in a major address in which he will lay out what the administration has billed as a "new way forward" in the nearly four-year-old conflict.

Tony Snowjob says "the administration is hoping for the president to deliver the speech before Christmas, although he said the timing has not been nailed down." Good thing too, about the nails, because the poor, long suffering administration would have just had to pull them all back up again.

President George W. Bush is likely to delay the unveiling of a new strategy for Iraq until early 2007, instead of late this year as originally planned, a White House official said on Tuesday.

"This is not a sign of trouble," the official said. Unless you happen to be an Iraqi, one presumes.

It's just a little glitch in the choreography, is all.