The chattering classes have turned against him. The voting public thinks the country is headed in the wrong direction. The American media, which sees its role as comforting the comfortable until they are afflicted and then piling on, is now piling on. So George W. Bush is reduced to doing desperate damage control in a political crisis setting. On Monday night, in his first of a weekly series of high-profile speeches intended to show he sees a way out of the current mess in Iraq, he instead proved that he's as discombobulated by developments there as everyone else. He delivered his speech at a podium backed by the American eagle logo of the U.S. Army War College, which kindly provided a receptive audience for Bush's circumlocutions, but his aides might just as well have hung a "Mission Impossible" banner behind him.

The course hasn't worked so far, but we must stay the course, he said. Things are sort of bad, and likely to get worse, but then they will get better, he said. Just trust me. I have a plan. I'm not going to explain the important details, or address the difficult and controversial choices that loom, but don't worry, my plan will work because history demands it, because duty requires it, because only "killers," "terrorists," and "extremists" oppose it. As for the explosion of America Go Home nationalism that now holds the allegiance of a majority of Iraqis? Well, okay, "they are a proud people who hold strong and diverse opinions," but the president is sure they are "united" in the belief that holding national elections will put the "dark time" behind them. Evidence for this assertion? None.

It's not enough. Not anymore. When spin enters the outskirts of mendacity, it loses its rhetorical force, and Bush has been spinning a false optimism about success in Iraq being just around the corner for so long now (as the situation there has steadily deteriorated) that almost no one who matters believes him anymore. The generals don't; Anthony Zinni, the retired head of the U.S. Central Command, appeared to be speaking for a growing contingent of the officer corps when he told 60 Minutes on Sunday that "to think that we are going 'to stay the course,' the course is headed over Niagara Falls... it's been a failure."

The only one who doesn't appear to realize this is Bush himself. He clings to the old tricks: If you repeat something enough, that will make it true. Bush clings to the claim that Iraq is "the central front in the war on terror" as if it's a crucifix, sustaining his faith in his own Manichaean worldview in a moment of Job-like affliction. But if it's true now--and that is debatable--it is only because Bush has made it so by invading and mismanaging a chaotic occupation.

I also count three times during the speech that he describes June 30 as a transfer of "full sovereignty." He adds that on June 30 "the occupation will end." But what does full sovereignty mean? Fewer American troops? No, 138,000 Americans will remain "as long as necessary." Iraqis making all, or even some, of the major decisions about their own security? Unclear.

Bush is in serious political trouble for one fundamental reason: He broke his deal with the American people, though he can't admit it and hope to get reelected. He sold them a beautiful mirage about a painless war, quick, clean, and incontrovertibly virtuous, one that would come complete with uplifting images of statues of tyrants falling and American armor strewn with flowers. Give me a free hand to do this, he told the American people. It will cost you almost nothing, and I will make you proud. Go ahead, they replied, we trust you, but you better make damn sure this doesn't screw up our comfortable, well-ordered lives.

Now that Iraq is screwing with our comfortable, well-ordered lives, Bush has a nearly insurmountable problem on his hands. He can't do what he ought to--escalation, or partition, or a quick election followed by a quick exit--because that would be an admission that the deal was always a fraudulent one. He's left with endlessly claiming that if we stay the course, things will get better. Why? Because he believes they are supposed to. He has snared himself in an endless tape loop, repeating the same process over and over, each time hoping for a different result. If that seems a little insane, it probably is.