Tony Snow, after attacking Democrats' war plans, bristled when CNN reporter Ed Henry asked what Bush's own plan for Iraq success was.

Ever the articulate spokesman, Snow told Henry to "Zip it!" He later apologized.

CNN anchor Tony Harris concluded the story thusly:

Ed, if it weren’t such a solemn day we could do about five minutes on that whole zip it exchange, but because of the the anniversary, we will let it go at that.

Props to Henry for calling the elephant in the room. But this little vignette is the perfect tribute to four years of insane media deference to an insane president conducting an insane war.

CNN daren't focus too long on the massive breakdown of logic, law, policy, strategy, tactics — and the MSM's most prized commodity, civility — because the war that was wrought by all those failures is de facto solemn.

Like many people trying to wrap my mind around this madness, I often cite Monty Python, the masters of mocking man's absurdities.

But this is Three Stooges territory. Backed into a corner, the boys would hold drinking glasses up to their eyes, because you can't hit a guy wearing glasses.

Damned if it doesn't work just the same when you randomly and disastrously start a war. You become unassailable because you're "a war president." Your war, no matter how juvenile its rationale, planning, and execution, is by definition too serious to seriously question.