Granted, “stated goals” is a bit of a misnomer in this context also, since the Bush administration has long made a practice of moving the goalposts and restated its goals at every juncture in the long and daunting history of its ill-starred adventure in Iraq. But even according to its own officials and by its own standards, the administration’s escalation of its efforts there has been anything but a success.

As Senator Kerry pointed out in no uncertain terms in his essay that was posted here yesterday and in his Senate remarks this week regarding the GAO’s Iraq report, the escalation has simply not worked.

As the LA Times made clear in this assessment of the overall situation in Iraq: Despite the administration’s escalated efforts at message control, the bottom line is that its escalation on the ground in Iraq has not accomplished its goals, nor is it likely to in the future. Despite all the pro-war contingent’s talking points and photo ops, the escalation’s successes have been small and its costs have been huge.

It’s not a “surge,” it’s an escalation. And the escalation hasn’t worked. So now what?

If the recent past is any indication, the politically-driven escalators in the White House and the Pentagon will keep on pushing for more troops in the region, more permanent bases, more billions of wasted dollars, more human loss and tragedy, all in an unfounded attempt to create the illusion of forward progress despite the reality on the ground.

But that’s the nature of escalators. We’ve all seen it happen in practical terms when we observe non-metaphorical escalators in action at airports and subway stations and department stores. One might ride the escalator upwards one time, downwards another, and walk away with the impression that those moving stairs are actually going somewhere. But, of course, they’re not. They’re just going round and round, endlessly following a closed loop that merely brings them back to where they started from.

Like the escalators in department stores, the escalators in the White House want to create the impression that they’re actually going somewhere. The Bush administration’s escalators want people to believe that they’re actually being carried upwards on an ongoing basis.

But people know that escalators can carry them downwards just as easily, too. And with every day that passes and every report that comes out of Iraq, more and more people are refusing to buy into the spin and the sputtering coming from the White House.

So even from that angle, anyway you spin it… this escalation hasn’t worked, and these escalators are going nowhere fast.