Ahead of the curve

So, the reassessments of the reassessments are already underway, and we don't even have the report from top Iraq commander Gen. David Petraeus yet! Today, senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) went on ABC television's This Week with George Stephanopolous to disagree about the meaning of the report that hasn't been officially released. They already know what is says while we, the people who paying for it, don't have a clue. If what's already in the press is accurate, Petraeus will recommend continuing current policy in Iraq when he appears before Congress tomorrow. Kerry, who lost the presidency to Bush in 2004, said the most important thing in Iraq was political reconciliation between the often violent factions competing for power while McCain, whose campaign for the Republican presidential nomination is foundering, said he believes Petraeus is on the right track with the troop surge in Iraq. Why won't anyone say the truth? Sad as it is to say, the biggest problem for the American people is figuring out who to believe. Of course, that doesn't have to be a problem. We already know the Bush administration is untrustworthy. On a related note, I see that Laura Bush, the president's wife, had elective surgery yesterday to fix a neck problem. Yes, elective surgery. That's the term I've always used for the Supreme Court's decision upholding George W. Bush's victory in the 2000 election.

Stupid does

News from Washington today raises the possibility that the Democrats in Congress are finally waking up from their Iraq war slumber. According to the Los Angeles Times, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the Democrats' No. 2 guy in the Senate, said in a speech yesterday that the White House was manipulating statistics from Iraq and the well-anticipated Petraeus report was not going to be an independent analysis after all. Gee, you think? After weeks of the Bush administration explaining what the supposedly imminent reports would say? After a week of the White House rejecting independent findings critical of the Iraq venture? No, kids, this fix is already in. We might as well just assume that the report from Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, will be a little analysis and a lot of cheerleading, and go from there. If the president thinks that he can continue to cook the facts to convince Americans to support his war, he must think we're all stupid.

Long way down

Does anyone else find it strange to hear that President Bush is warning China's leaders to ease the pressure on religious groups and political dissidents in advance of next summer's Olympics in Beijing? Sure, the Chinese government has an awful human rights record. Some of the crap it has pulled is unbelievable. But the Bush administration has nothing to be proud of. Doesn't Bush even realize that the American people are worried about the Executive Branch power grab under the USA Patriot Act, which has imperiled civil liberties under the Bill of Rights that are the moral underpinnings of our nation? Didn't the voters' repudiation of the Republican Party in the last election mean anything? Haven't enough officials bailed from the Bush government to give the president a clue? Does his elevator still stop at the upper floors?

That darn constitution

Well, blow me down! A federal judge in New York has ruled that part of the recently revised USA Patriot Act violates the First Amendment and the constitutional separation of powers. Can you believe it? After months and months and months of copouts instead of decisions by the courts on the Bush administration's assault on civil liberties, U.S. District Court Judge Victor Marrero has said "stop." The revised law permitted the FBI to use secret national security letters to force communications companies to reveal customer records, and to bar the companies from telling anyone that they had done so. Saying the government's position raised the "ominous" specter of the "hijacking of constitutional values," Judge Marrero declared portions of the act unconstitutional. The case, filed by an internet service provider whose name has not been revealed, actually is the third time federal judges blocked portions of the Patriot Act, the second time for Marrero. The American Civil Liberties Union represented the Internet company. The government, of course, is expected to appeal.

Oval-office politics

What's with the White House refusing to release the name of its e-mail contractor to Congress? It seems Rep. Henry Waxman has demanded the name of the company running the e-mail server after the White House reported losing some 5 million messages requested by Congress for its investigation into the U.S. Attorney firings. But the White House has refused to turn over the name of the company, even though Congress is paying the bills and, presumably, the Treasury Department has written the checks. Why would the lawmakers stand for this? Talk about contempt of Congress! Actually, it's Congress that's been contemptible. This is the result of years of letting George W. Bush and Dick Cheney get their way over and over again on issues that used to be of concern to other branches of the government. They don't even pretend to have legal justification for many of the things they do; Congressional leaders just let them get away with it. After all, why would members of Congress agree to expand the administration's power under the Patriot Act after its sorry record running the war in Iraq and policing the conduct of U.S. soldiers in that country?

Sneaking around

Good to hear that President Bush was able to sneak into Iraq and meet with his advisers and speak to the troops on his way to Australia. After five years and billions upon billions of dollars, at least it is safe enough for the president and his staff to slip into Anbar Province under cover of darkness. Is it me, or is it strange to consider that progress? The president's men and woman also appear to have agreed on what the result of the long Iraq reassessment is going to be, even before the reports have been written. We're staying in full force with the surge continuing into next year, and the independent reports be damned. Why, the White House even intervened to soften the Government Accountability Office's report on how badly the Iraqi government is doing. Sheesh. On another different but perversely similar topic, I was glad to hear that Sen. Larry Craig has decided not to resign from the U.S. Senate and instead to fight his conviction on a disorderly conduct for allegedly soliciting a police officer for sex in a men's room in Minneapolis. He could actually be innocent. Then again, we also might get to hear some juicy details about his past sexual conduct.

Continuing consternation

No wonder Iraq war critics in the Congress and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki are frustrated with each other. Today, the Associated Press says, al-Maliki told reporters that his job of reconciling factions in the Iraqi government was very difficult and the Americans calling for his replacement have it wrong. Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination for president in the 2008 election, and Carl Levin of Michigan, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, among others, have called for al-Maliki to step down. On top of that, just days after an independent U.S. panel called for an overhaul of the Iraqi security forces, the British announced that they were turning over more control over southern Iraq to those same Iraqi security forces. How can all of these things be correct? It looks like nobody knows what's really going on, even though they profess to. Is it any wonder that the Iraq occupation is a mess? I guess we're all frustrated.