The Petreaus report as brought to you by...

I am clearly a little stupid. I had thought that General Petreas would come to the US and present Congress and the American people with a report of the positive and negative outcomes of the infamous "surge" that was supposed to make Baghdad safe for Democracy or, at least, safe. Of course, that hasn't worked and we all know it.

The other day we learned that Congress in its lack of wisdom had demanded of the White House a report on progress in Iraq in mid-September. And that seems to be what we will get. Petraeus will report to Bush and Bush and his political hacks will tell us what they want us to know and will call that "the Petraeus Report." It will be "The Petraeus Report as written by George Bush," as when a book about some NBA players life and loves comes out under his name with, below it, the phrase "as written by ..." Some sports writer will have written the book. So, General Petraeus's report will be ghosted by the White House. None of this is new. Generals do what they are told.

General Petreaus will also testify before Congress. What will he do? Testilie? Will he craft all his replies so they are consistent with the White House interpretation of his views? Or will he tell the truth? General Petraeus can be a great war leader only if he wins the Iraq war, whatever that might mean. What we can be sure of is that he doesn't want to be the General in power at the time that we "cut and run" as we surely will some day.

Bush has run out of options. He has played the "Wait until the September Petreaus Report" card and can't play the Petreas card again, especially now that we know that it won't actually be a Petraeus report. What matters now is what the Republicans in Congress will do. Will they work with Democrats to craft an end the war policy or not. Interestingly Deborah Pryce, a powerful House Republican is cutting and running. And this morning I learned that Dennis Hastert, the former leader of House Republicans is also cutting and running. I thought that Republicans are against cutting and running.

Maybe they will give the country a nice going away present by working with the Democrats to end this stupid war. They know that the Demos will take over the House and Senate and the Presidency unless they screw things up, as so many of us fear they will do. Who should be the Demo candidate? Hillary has real positives to go with her "negatives." Despite my opposition to the Iraq war, I am not a dove. In fact, IMO, we should have stayed in Afghanistan until every last Al Queda and Talliban member was dead or had cut and run. And then we should have chased them to wherever they set up their camps and bombed the living crap out of them. Just no stupid wars. Or should it be Obama. He has the virtue of having lived as a child in a Muslim country. That has surely given him a good perspective on the world. Unfortunately, a buddy called Obama "Obambi" in an email to me. This renaming, unfair or not, has colored my perception of him since.