I think Tony is trying to say that increased violence means the insurgents are getting "desperate"... but then again that was used so many times two years ago it'll probably only make people laugh now?

Over at RedState, we see how Bush is faring of late:

ABC News is reporting their White House correspondent has been told by government officials that Gens. Petraeus and Odierno have already decided that they want to keep US troop levels at current levels into December and possibly well into 2008 if not longer.  So if I read this correctly, it's only the beginning of June but senior commanders in Iraq have already decided what they'll report... in September? 

Its hard to say whether or not Ms. Raddatz received a load of bull but I'd feel a lot better if Congress were to ask Gens. Petraeus and Odierno to come back and answer some questions about this matter.  I figure if Petraeus can comeback and give a secret pep-talk to the Republican caucus before the escalation vote then he'll have no trouble coming back to answer a few questions on this matter from say Ike Skelton or Carl Levin.

Plame Covert.

"Asking Petraeus to assess the situation in September might be asking him - if the evidence pointed in that direction - to say that his whole counterinsurgency strategy was wrong. If the evidence is not clear, he would most likely cherry-pick data by pointing out, as he already has, that sectarian violence is down in Baghdad, while ignoring such inconvenient truths as the increase in suicide bombings or the rise in deaths of American soldiers and contractors.

Was Gen. William Westmoreland ever objective about the attrition strategy in Vietnam or Gen. Douglas MacArthur about the Chinese intervention in Korea?"

I doubt Gen. Petraeus got to where he is by doubting his own abilities or offering any real hard objective criticism of the President's policy in Iraq to date.  As I said in an earlier post, this is the guy made responsible for building the new Iraqi Army a couple years ago and despite his glowing editorials to date I'm not sure I see much in the way of progress on that front, either.

If you were to read this article you wouldn't have a clue, but you would come to see that it is elusive.  If my reading is correct basically what we're seeing now in Iraq is a wash.  Number of attacks in Baghdad are steady and rising, violence is moving to surrounding areas as well as what once were fairly quiet parts of the country, sectarian killings are down (if we leave out those killed by car bombs), while the Shiites have already ethnically cleansed most of East Baghdad they can't expand for the time being, no political compromises expected before the Iraqi government takes a couple months off during the summer, oh, and attacks have decreased in Anbar province.  In fact, the US military is so confident things are gonna work over time that they refuse to release any sort of statistics on the number of attacks on US and Iraqi forces in Baghdad? 

Which gets me back to "progress", what does it mean in this context?  How do we measure it especially when it doesn't appear to be happening in any real quantifiable way?  I know, wait until all the troops get there and see what happens but I keep seeing things that question the efficacy of even our current strategy.  Check out this Pat Lang post and tell me he doesn't have a point that most of these outposts we're putting up in Baghdad are poorly placed, difficult to defend and difficult to relieve in the case of a well-coordinated attack, which will eventually come.  I too was struck by the picture, not realizing we were putting up blast walls around everything and puzzled that fields of fire appeared almost non-existent in these built up areas. 

And don't expect Ray Odierno to sort it out.  His command of the 4th Infantry Division in the first two years of the occupation will someday be a textbook in how not to fight a counterinsurgency.  For instance, intimidating and terrorizing the population as force protection is as a rule really bad, detaining all the men (suspect or not) in a sweep area and sending them to an already crowded Abu Ghraib prison is a recipe for disaster, and, my favorite, counterinsurgency by interdicting artillery fire (ie. receive a little mortar fire and drop a couple hundred artillery shells on small towns and farm fields) really doesn't work.  Yep, one more thing that doesn't give me any hope this will work.  Sure Petraeus is overall commander, but Ray Odierno does the day to day and I while I know he is an asshole, I have no confidence he really knows what he's doing. 

Which gets me back to my main question, what is progress?

Christ, what are they teaching kids in journalism school nowadays? 

Greg Sargent has a post highlighting the latest absurd GOP attack on Nancy Pelosi.  I know Nancy Pelosi attack stories are a dime a dozen these days, but what is telling is how uncritically the Associated Press picked up the "story" and ran with it?  Republicans are charging Pelosi with adding $25 million to the budget for renovations to the San Francisco waterfront solely to pump up the value of various rental properties owned by her husband while Pelosi is on record as saying the Port of San Francisco requested the funding. 

Basically, what we get is another "GOP charges this and the Pelosi people deny the allegation" trope or as I like to call it, another "there's a controversy here, the end" story.  Interestingly enough, Greg notes that there is no indication that AP bothered to verify if the Speaker's defense of her actions held up?  They reported the controversy but never bothered to call anyone in San Francisco, yet alone the Port of San Francisco, and when Greg called, guess what, yep, the Port of San Francisco requested the funding, the decision making was generated by local agencies and the request was passed up throught the mayor's office and local city and county government? 

I'm sorry, I know a lot of reporters work on deadline but isn't that basic Journalism 101, try to verify whether allegations are true before going to press?  And wouldn't it have been a much bigger story if you'd bothered to call the Port of San Francisco and they said, we don't know what you're talking about and this is Nancy Pelosi's project all the way?  Instead we get crap like the "Speaker wants the biggest plane the military has to commute home" stories or "Barack Obama attended a radical islamic school when he was younger" stories.  It shouldn't be up to bloggers like Greg Sargent to follow up on these things, that's your job!  Maybe this is just my opinion, but Christ you'd have had to have slept through the last six years not to know that much of what you'll hear from Republicans, from the White House to the Congress, doesn't hold up to even a tiny bit of scrutiny or verification, in fact the US Attorney hearings among others make that abundantly clear, so how about more real reporting and less passing on the gossip of the week, huh? 

Its amazing to watch most pundits fall over themselves trying to come up with reasons as to why one more John McCain presidential run is floundering.  I figure that after all they've (ie. the MSM) invested in building up (St.) McCain's reputation as a "straight-shooter" and the principle voice of "bipartisanship" in the entire Congress through almost daily interviews with national media outlets, etc. that its a bit puzzling to them that nobody really likes him.  Oh people like "the idea" of John McCain, for sure, but the "real" McCain that shows up and that they see and listen to, ah, not so much.  Nevertheless, the pundits must make excuses for the disconnect, and one of the flimsiest that keeps coming up is that "McCain isn't really a politician at heart". One of the more ludicrious excuses along this line is the one Newsweek's Evan Thomas offered, "...it may be because he is not, at heart, a politician. He is a warrior." 

Classic.  First, am I to believe the man really wants to be president but he doesn't want to do all the things you need to do to be president and instead of asking if he's lazy or just really bad at running for president, we get excuses like he's "a warrior", not a politician? 

Second, John McCain has been a politician and member of Congress for a little over 25 years now, even longer if count the four years he spent as Navy liaison to the Senate.  By my count this is several years longer than his military career, so at what point can we stop referring to him as a "warrior" and start coming to terms with the fact he's just a politician.  Lord, I'm not going to even talk about how he divorced his first wife after having an affair with the current Mrs. McCain (20 yrs his junior)who happened to be the heir to one of the largest beer and liquor distribution fortunes in the country and all of it not long before he made his leap into politics running for an open House seat in her home state of Arizona because..... well, that's not too sporting is it?  The point is, someone with over 25 years of experience as a politician knows all the things that need to be done to stay a politician, especially the incessant need to raise money, so I'd suggest if Sen. McCain is really the man of integrity I've been reading about then he naturally should have quit the business a couple decades ago. 

It's a shame we have such a need to place the John McCain's of the world on a pedestal because invariably when it comes down to it they don't really measure up to our heightened expectations.  Perhaps we should take politicians, and make no mistakes McCain is a politician, and talk about them as they are and not how we wish them to be and maybe this need to make excuses for the distinguished Senator from Arizona's crappy campaign would go away.  Besides, he's a Senator and if memory serves every political commentator, reporter, and journalist I know says that Senator's can't get elected or make poor Presidents... then again, I think they only say that when we're talking about Democratic Senators running for president so I could be wrong?

I'm not a big fan of Hillary Clinton, but she is long on balls.

In her most dramatic statement on the Iraq war since officially entering the 2008 presidential race, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) called for ending the 2002 authorization resolution for the war.

Clinton joined with Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.V.), a leading war opponent, in offering a proposal to "sunset" the 2002 use-of-force resolution by Oct. 11, 2007, the fifth anniversary of the Senate vote allowing President Bush to take military action against Saddam Hussein. Under the Byrd-Clinton plan, Bush would then have to return to Congress to seek new authority to conduct the war.

Outflanking Obama on the left. He's still using the 2004 playbook that got him in the Senate.  This is a different time and a different place.

The only thing that Obama could do is vote for a more radical bill. Which he won't do. He's carrying Lieberman's mantle to defeat.

Edwards is durable however. He doesn't have to vote on the resolution. Gore will have to move up his timetable too.

And what will the summer bring? Congress will remain in session this time. The Democrats are planning to rule this town when Bush is in Crawford. The hearings will gavel on.

And look at the deauthorization date. Mid-October. This will pin every GOP candidate to the wall.

Her Maggie Thatcher moment. Even people who don't read the news will soon learn that Hillary is fighting George Bush.

And the Republicans? Three of their candidates don't believe in evolution.