From Holden:

Two snippets from the Post’s invaluable Dan Froomkin.

First, unwanted reality: Chas Freeman, former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia and head of the independent Middle East Policy Council, tells a story.

“Anyway, the other day I understand that someone went into the Oval Office — someone known to everybody here, a rather senior person who is on his way out of the administration [Pssst. It was Colin Powell.] — and was asked by the president what was going on in Iraq, and said, with his characteristic bluntness, we’re losing — and was asked to leave the office forthwith and not continue the discussion.

“So there’s a question about what is going on in Iraq, and perhaps the competition between reality-based analysis, much disparaged in Washington these days, and hallucinatory optimism, which is the alternative.”

Next: the Bush Legacy.

“A highway sign used to welcome people to New Haven, birthplace of President George W. Bush. But it was vandalized so much, it was finally taken down for good.

“Now a lawmaker wants to rename a stretch of highway through the heart of the left-leaning city the President George W. Bush Highway. . . .

“‘We should name a traffic jam after him, not a highway,’ said Mayor John DeStefano, a Democrat running for governor.”