James Carney of Time seems to have learned from his exposure at Yearly Kos and with Glenn and friends judging from his item on the FISA bill in Dashboard. Here’s the end of the piece.

“What had been a bipartisan consensus to reconcile the 1978 law governing the use of domestic wiretapping with the modern era of e-mail servers and mobile phones turned bitter and partisan when the Administration demanded more changes, including one granting the power to oversee the electronic-surveillance program to the Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, the Cabinet official who has the least credibility with Congress (and with the rest of the country, for that matter). In the end, 16 Democratic Senators and 41 Representatives concluded that the risk of being maligned as soft on terror wasn't worth taking. With Republicans in lockstep, the numbers were plenty; the 14-page bill was rushed through in an emergency weekend session. The President quickly signed it into law.

Democrats consoled themselves by insisting that the new law expire in six months. But any effort to narrow its scope in half a year will surely be vetoed by this President. As for his successor, what are the chances that he, or she, will want to make it a priority to "take away the tools that America's spy agencies need to fight terrorism?" When it's put that way--and it will be--it's easy to imagine the law remaining as is for years to come. Such is the price of a worry-free vacation.”

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1651511,00.html

C-span carried yesterday Anthony Cordesman’s views on Iraq and his most recent trip when he spoke at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. I worked with Cordesman when I was a public affairs officer at CENTCOM when it was formed in the early ‘80s. Our CINC and staff had a lot of respect for his views then and I continue to respect his views now. He represents one of the best means of “truthing” what Petraeus and Odierno tell us in September.

I posted on a Glenn thread August 9th, “The true record of the current leaders both generals Petraeus and Odierno should be revealed. Neither would have been made leaders by this administration if they possessed the courage to see and speak the truth. If their so-called accurate voices can be negated and the American people can see their views are not credible, the surge success argument would disintegrate.” Congrats Glenn for going after Petraeus full bore.

Regarding Gen. Petraeus’s true character, I choose the latter of Col. Lechliter’s choices that he is “another self-serving delusional leader,” who carefully chooses his words so that he would appear to be what the neocon mantra has told the American people, the “true” judge of what is happening militarily in Iraq. His career and life goals lie in proving the surge a success and that alone makes him anything but an objective observer.

After Cordesman appears on Charlie Rose, the bloggosphere should start trumpeting him as the real judge and the neocons will have a hard time arguing because they gave Cordesman their support when they included him on the trip. And putting all the neocon rotten eggs in the Petraeus basket, makes them very vulnerable if we expose the truth of his lack of credibility.

Here’s the c-span link to the speech

http://www.c-span.org/homepage.asp?Cat=Current_Event&Code=Iraq&ShowVidNum=24&Rot_Cat_CD=US_Iraq&Rot_HT=&Rot_WD=&ShowVidDays=365&ShowVidDesc=&ArchiveDays=30

Cordesman may not represent the speed that we would like in getting out, but the most important thing he said was the need to recognize around February that no significant political progress means no chance for surge success. He testifies to congress often and is respected on both sides of the aisle. My major point is that he will always tell the truth and can’t be polluted by the neocons.

We have to be realistic on the time it will take discredit the neocon plans. Gen. Petraeus and Cordesman have talked about the 9-10 years, at least, that it takes to defeat an insurgency and the need for a much higher forces to insurgents ratio to succeed. We should keep hitting on those two points and the American people will say more forcefully- get out.

All the Dem gloomers on congress keep focusing on the wrong target. We have to move the Republican senators who are up for election and those who still care about American and Iraqi deaths and other horrors. Hopefully, their constituencies are going to move them to cross over on their so-called vacation that will be laced with fund raising. We don’t have to wait for a Dem president if we stop wailing and resolve to get something done. We need to use a strong Dem mantra to counter the GOP mantra and don’t forget we have truth and humanity on our side. I am not ready to concede anything to these guys and I don’t think Glenn or our realistic Dem congressional leadership is going to either. If you don't gather more resolve, maybe you should consider changing your handle.