Salon.com > Sidney Blumenthal http://www.salon.com Thu, 20 Jun 2013 04:25:54 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 The GOP on the verge of imploding http://www.salon.com/2008/04/24/blumenthal_death/ http://www.salon.com/2008/04/24/blumenthal_death/#comments Thu, 24 Apr 2008 10:00:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/books/excerpt/2008/04/24/blumenthal_death On May 3, 2007, ten Republican candidates aspiring to succeed George W. Bush as president debated at the Ronald W. Reagan Library, where they mentioned Reagan 21 times and Bush not once. By raising the icon of Reagan, they hoped to dispel the shadow of Bush. Reagan himself had often invoked magic -- "the magic of the marketplace" was among his trademark phrases and he had been the TV host at the grand opening of Disneyland, "the Magic Kingdom," in 1955. Evoking his name was an act of sympathetic magic in the vain hope that its mere mention would transfer his success to his pretenders and transport them back to the heyday of Republican rule.

Bush's second term has witnessed the great unraveling of the Republican coalition. After nearly two generations of political dominance, the Republican coalition has rapidly disintegrated under the stress of Bush's failures and the Republicans' scandals and disgrace. The Democrats have the greatest possible opening in more than a generation -- potentially. They should pay strict attention to how Bush has swiftly undone Republican strengths as an object lesson.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2008/04/24/blumenthal_death/feed/ 83 Dick Cheney was never a “grown-up” http://www.salon.com/2008/04/14/cheney_10/ http://www.salon.com/2008/04/14/cheney_10/#comments Mon, 14 Apr 2008 11:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/books/excerpt/2008/04/14/cheney After Dick Cheney shot a friend in the face on a Texas hunting trip in February 2006, the national press corps began to speculate about him as one of the great mysteries of Washington, the Sphinx of the Naval Observatory, his official residence. Cheney had been known in the capital for decades through a career that carried him from congressional intern to the most powerful vice president in American history, but now his supposedly changed character became a subject of intense speculation. Brent Scowcroft, who had been George H.W. Bush's national security adviser, and had counseled against the invasion of Iraq, told The New Yorker magazine in 2005, "I consider Cheney a good friend -- I've known him for thirty years. But Dick Cheney I don't know anymore." Scowcroft's judgment was less about Cheney's temperament than his policy positions. The press, however, sought to disclose the sources of his "darkening persona," as a cover story in Newsweek described it. "Has Cheney changed? Has he been transformed, warped, perhaps corrupted -- by stress, wealth, aging, illness, the real terrors of the world or possibly some inner goblins?" A cover story entitled "Heart of Darkness," published in The New Republic, suggested that Cheney's heart disease had produced vascular dementia. "So, the next time you see Cheney behaving oddly, don't automatically assume that he's a bad man."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2008/04/14/cheney_10/feed/ 58 Goodbye, Mr. Bush http://www.salon.com/2007/11/15/2008_election/ http://www.salon.com/2007/11/15/2008_election/#comments Thu, 15 Nov 2007 11:05:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/opinion//blumenthal/2007/11/15/2008_election Under crisis conditions of an extraordinary magnitude political leadership of the highest level will be required in the next presidency. The damage is broad, deep and spreading, apparent not only in international disorder and violence, the unprecedented decline of U.S. prestige, and the flouting of our security and economic interests but also in the hollowing out of the federal government's departments and agencies, and their growing incapacity to fulfill their functions, from FEMA to the Department of Justice.

The more rigid the current president is in responding to the chaos he has fostered, the more the Republicans still supporting him rally around him as a pillar of strength. His flat learning curve, refusal to admit error and redoubling of mistakes are regarded as tests of his strong character. Whatever his low poll ratings of the moment, his stubborn adherence to failure is admired as evidence of his potency.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2007/11/15/2008_election/feed/ 122 Bush’s old world disorder http://www.salon.com/2007/11/08/musharraf_bush/ http://www.salon.com/2007/11/08/musharraf_bush/#comments Thu, 08 Nov 2007 11:58:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/opinion//blumenthal/2007/11/08/musharraf_bush Every aspect of Bush's foreign policy has now collapsed. Every dream of neoconservatism has become a nightmare. Every doctrine has turned to dust. The influence of the United States has reached a nadir, its lowest point since before World War II, when the country was encased in isolationism.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose soul President Bush famously claimed to peer through, is scuttling arms control agreements and cutting his own deals with the Iranians. The Turkish army is poised to invade northern Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish militants that the Iraqi government and the U.S. allowed to roam freely. The resurgent Taliban, given a second life when Bush drained resources from Afghanistan for the invasion of Iraq, is besieging the countryside, straining the future of the Western alliance in the form of NATO. Pakistan, whose intelligence service and military contain elements that sponsor the Taliban and al-Qaida, remains an epicenter of terrorism. Gen. Pervez Musharraf's imposition of martial law in Pakistan on Nov. 3 was his second coup, reinforcing his 1999 military takeover. Facing elections in January 2008 that seemed likely to repudiate him and an independent judiciary that refused to grant him extraordinary powers, he suspended constitutional rule. Toothless U.S. admonitions were easily ignored.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2007/11/08/musharraf_bush/feed/ 44 The sad decline of Michael Mukasey http://www.salon.com/2007/11/01/mukasey_10/ http://www.salon.com/2007/11/01/mukasey_10/#comments Thu, 01 Nov 2007 11:17:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/opinion//blumenthal/2007/11/01/mukasey When President Bush nominated Michael Mukasey as attorney general his distinguished career was offered as guarantee of his integrity and independence. A former federal district judge, senior partner at a major law firm and former assistant U.S. attorney, well known and widely respected by the New York bar, he appeared to have the experience and balance needed to restore trust to the battered Justice Department. The previous attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, had been an eager plaything of the White House, a factotum from Texas who faithfully followed orders to politicize and purge for partisan purposes. While Mukasey espouses conservative views upholding an expansive interpretation of the executive, and argues that warrantless domestic surveillance is therefore justified, Democratic senators on the Judiciary Committee were still willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2007/11/01/mukasey_10/feed/ 50 Journalism and its discontents http://www.salon.com/2007/10/25/walter_lippmann/ http://www.salon.com/2007/10/25/walter_lippmann/#comments Thu, 25 Oct 2007 11:05:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/opinion//blumenthal/2007/10/25/walter_lippmann Walter Lippmann (1889-1974) was the most influential American journalist of the 20th century. Born into one of the German-Jewish "Our Crowd" families of New York City, he began his career as a cub reporter for Lincoln Steffens, the crusading investigative journalist, then became one of the original editors of the New Republic, and was recruited to write speeches for President Woodrow Wilson and help formulate his plan to make the world "safe for democracy," the Fourteen Points. In the 1920s, Lippmann became editorial director of the New York World, then a major daily newspaper with a Democratic orientation. When it folded, the New York Herald Tribune offered him a column, which, with the Washington Post, served as his journalistic base for almost 50 years.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2007/10/25/walter_lippmann/feed/ 70 Arthur M. Schlesinger’s playbill for the American century http://www.salon.com/2007/10/18/schlesinger_journals/ http://www.salon.com/2007/10/18/schlesinger_journals/#comments Thu, 18 Oct 2007 11:03:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/opinion//blumenthal/2007/10/18/schlesinger_journals Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., who died this past February, would have celebrated his 90th birthday this week, on Oct. 15, an event commemorated with the publication of his "Journals: 1952-2000," culled by two of his sons, Andrew and Stephen, from 6,000 pages down to a mere 858, far too short. If the American century were cast as a Broadway show, this would be the playbill.

Schlesinger lived many lives, in academia, in politics and in cafe society. Of course, he was among the greatest historians of his generation, continuing the tradition of his distinguished father, the originator of the cycles of American politics, and his reputed ancestor, George Bancroft, the 19th-century historian and political intimate of Democratic presidents. Schlesinger was also a speechwriter and advisor to Democratic politicians and presidents, serving famously in the Kennedy White House. Before he went to work with John F. Kennedy, he had already published his magisterial histories, "The Age of Jackson" and the three volumes of "The Age of Roosevelt."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2007/10/18/schlesinger_journals/feed/ 12 An open letter to Karen Hughes http://www.salon.com/2007/10/11/torture_letter_to_hughes/ http://www.salon.com/2007/10/11/torture_letter_to_hughes/#comments Thu, 11 Oct 2007 11:21:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/opinion//blumenthal/2007/10/11/torture_letter_to_hughes Karen Hughes
Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs
U.S. Department of State
2201 C St. NW
Washington, DC 20520

Dear Karen Hughes:

You may recall that we met briefly in January 2001, during the transition to the Bush administration, when you dropped by my office in the White House. You were filled with enthusiasm and I wished you good luck. Now I am writing you as the executive producer of a documentary, "Taxi to the Dark Side" (directed by Alex Gibney), to invite you to a private preview in Washington on Oct. 18. The film has been described by the New York Times as "a meticulous examination of American policy on the interrogation of prisoners. It traces the scandals at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere to official changes of policy originating in the vice president's office and approved by the secretary of defense. We see documents listing approved methods of interrogation, including waterboarding, which simulates drowning."

The film includes interviews with military interrogators, victims and families of those tortured, and with members of the Bush administration who opposed the policy, such as former general counsel of the Navy Alberto Mora and Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2007/10/11/torture_letter_to_hughes/feed/ 87 Red, white and mercenary in Iraq http://www.salon.com/2007/10/04/private_military_in_iraq/ http://www.salon.com/2007/10/04/private_military_in_iraq/#comments Thu, 04 Oct 2007 11:08:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/opinion//blumenthal/2007/10/04/private_military_in_iraq On June 27, 2004, the day before the United States was to grant sovereignty to a new Iraqi government and disband the Coalition Provisional Authority, L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. proconsul, issued a stunning new order. One of the final acts of the CPA, Order 17 declared that foreign contractors within Iraq, including private military firms, would not be subject to any Iraqi laws -- "all International Consultants shall be immune from Iraqi legal process," it read. "Congratulations to the new Iraq!" Bremer said moments before flying out. His memoir, "My Year in Iraq," neglects to mention Order 17.

The author of Order 17 was a CPA official named Lawrence Peter, who oversaw the Iraqi Ministry of Interior. As soon as the CPA was dissolved, the Private Security Company Association of Iraq hired Peter to act as its liaison and lobbyist there. The new Iraq included a revolving door.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2007/10/04/private_military_in_iraq/feed/ 52 Dan Rather stands by his story http://www.salon.com/2007/09/27/dan_rather_suit/ http://www.salon.com/2007/09/27/dan_rather_suit/#comments Thu, 27 Sep 2007 11:29:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/opinion//blumenthal/2007/09/27/dan_rather_suit Dan Rather's complaint against CBS and Viacom, its parent company, filed in New York state court on Sept. 19 and seeking $70 million in damages for his wrongful dismissal as "CBS Evening News" anchor, has aroused hoots of derision from a host of commentators. They've said that the former anchor is "sad," "pathetic," "a loser," on an "ego" trip and engaged in a mad gesture "no sane person" would do, and that "no one in his right mind would keep insisting that those phony documents are real and that the Bush National Guard story is true."

If the court accepts his suit, however, launching the adjudication of legal issues such as breach of fiduciary duty and tortious interference with contract, it will set in motion an inexorable mechanism that will grind out answers to other questions as well. Then Rather's suit will become an extraordinary commission of inquiry into a major news organization's intimidation, complicity and corruption under the Bush administration. No congressional committee would be able to penetrate into the sanctum of any news organization to divulge its inner workings. But intent on vindicating his reputation, capable of financing an expensive legal challenge, and armed with the power of subpoena, Rather will charge his attorneys to interrogate news executives and perhaps administration officials under oath on a secret and sordid chapter of the Bush presidency.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2007/09/27/dan_rather_suit/feed/ 345 Bush’s stairway to paradise http://www.salon.com/2007/09/20/bush_draper/ http://www.salon.com/2007/09/20/bush_draper/#comments Thu, 20 Sep 2007 11:00:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/opinion//blumenthal/2007/09/20/bush_draper There has never been a moment when we were not winning in Iraq. Victory has followed victory, from "Mission Accomplished" to the purple fingers of the Iraqi election to, most recently, President Bush's meeting at Camp Cupcake in Anbar province with Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, the Sunni leader of the group Anbar Awakening (who was assassinated a week later). Turning point has followed turning point, from Bush's proclamation two years ago of his "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq" to his announcement last week of his "Return on Success." "We're kicking ass," he briefed the Australian deputy prime minister on Sept. 6 about his latest visit to Iraq. In his quasi-farewell address to the nation on Sept. 13, Bush assigned any possible shortcomings to Gen. David Petraeus and bequeathed his policy "beyond my presidency" to his successor.

After Bush pretended to deliberate over whether he would agree to his own policy as presented by his general in well-rehearsed performances before Congress -- "President Bush Accepts Recommendations" read a headline on the White House Web site -- he established an ideal division of responsibility. Bush could claim credit for the "Return on Success," whenever that might be, while Petraeus would be charged with whatever might go wrong.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2007/09/20/bush_draper/feed/ 129 How Bush is trying to save face in Iraq http://www.salon.com/2007/09/13/iraq_war/ http://www.salon.com/2007/09/13/iraq_war/#comments Thu, 13 Sep 2007 11:55:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/opinion//blumenthal/2007/09/13/iraq_war Two years ago the Sunni sheiks leading the insurgency in Iraq's Anbar province approached the United States, offering to end the violence in exchange for a timetable establishing that U.S. forces would withdraw from the country, a senior official at the highest level of the British government told me. Without some sort of negotiated deal that the Sunni leaders could brandish, they explained, they would not have the essential political justification for quelling the conflict. The British believed that the Sunni offer was being made in good faith and urged that it be accepted. But according to the senior British source, President Bush rejected it out of hand, still certain that he could achieve a military victory. He saw any agreement with the Sunnis as tantamount to defeat, the British official said. And yet, even as the Sunnis were rebuffed, Bush continued to invest trust in the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government to forge a political conciliation.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2007/09/13/iraq_war/feed/ 42 Bush knew Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction http://www.salon.com/2007/09/06/bush_wmd/ http://www.salon.com/2007/09/06/bush_wmd/#comments Thu, 06 Sep 2007 11:16:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/opinion//blumenthal/2007/09/06/bush_wmd On Sept. 18, 2002, CIA director George Tenet briefed President Bush in the Oval Office on top-secret intelligence that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, according to two former senior CIA officers. Bush dismissed as worthless this information from the Iraqi foreign minister, a member of Saddam's inner circle, although it turned out to be accurate in every detail. Tenet never brought it up again.

Nor was the intelligence included in the National Intelligence Estimate of October 2002, which stated categorically that Iraq possessed WMD. No one in Congress was aware of the secret intelligence that Saddam had no WMD as the House of Representatives and the Senate voted, a week after the submission of the NIE, on the Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq. The information, moreover, was not circulated within the CIA among those agents involved in operations to prove whether Saddam had WMD.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2007/09/06/bush_wmd/feed/ 293 Why did Gonzales resign? http://www.salon.com/2007/08/27/gonzales_resignation/ http://www.salon.com/2007/08/27/gonzales_resignation/#comments Mon, 27 Aug 2007 18:00:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/opinion//blumenthal/2007/08/27/gonzales_resignation When Alberto Gonzales swiftly turned heel on the stage at the Department of Justice without answering questions about his resignation as attorney general he left behind yet another lingering cloud of mystery. What is he not telling about his resignation?

The true story may be something like the denouement of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Purloined Letter," which was in plain sight all along, a solution that can, as Poe wrote, "escape observation by dint of being excessively obvious; and here the physical oversight is precisely analogous with the moral inapprehension by which the intellect suffers to pass unnoticed those considerations which are too obtrusively and too palpably self-evident." To be excessively obvious, Gonzales' resignation, following Karl Rove's exactly by two weeks, is the shadow of the first act.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2007/08/27/gonzales_resignation/feed/ 64 Fantasy island http://www.salon.com/2007/08/22/bush_legacy/ http://www.salon.com/2007/08/22/bush_legacy/#comments Wed, 22 Aug 2007 11:24:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/opinion//blumenthal/2007/08/22/bush_legacy Even before the date of his resignation from the White House took effect, Karl Rove furiously launched himself on his legacy tour. Appearing on three Sunday morning TV shows over the past weekend he was intent on demonstrating the range of his political, military and literary mastery. Rove rattled off statistics of minority group voting patterns for President Bush in the 2004 election as if the moment were the apotheosis of the Republican Party. He cited Napoleon in order to justify the Iraq war -- "Look, Napoleon said that your battle plan doesn't survive the first contact with the enemy, but you still have to have a plan" -- but not Napoleon's remark after the retreat from Moscow: "There is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous." And Rove thrashed around in search of an appropriate character from fiction to describe his ineffable and immortal being. "I'm Moby Dick," he began, but, dissatisfied with identifying himself as the great white whale, drew upon his wellspring of literature for yet other self-projections. "Let's face it. I mean, I'm a myth, and they're -- you know, I'm Beowulf. You know, I'm Grendel. I don't know who I am. But they're after me." Hunted and hunter, beast and warrior, author of his own tale nonetheless suffering an identity crisis, a figure transcendent beyond history still pursued down dark alleys, Rove finally rested on a note of paranoia. If the demons were after him, what would he not do to punish them?

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2007/08/22/bush_legacy/feed/ 63 We’ll go no more a-Rove-ing http://www.salon.com/2007/08/13/karl_rove/ http://www.salon.com/2007/08/13/karl_rove/#comments Mon, 13 Aug 2007 21:00:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/opinion//blumenthal/2007/08/13/karl_rove With the departure of Karl Rove the Bush administration now enters its last throes. As a legacy for his patron, Rove has designed the public relations offensive for the fall presidential campaign to attempt to corner congressional Democrats through a combination of Gen. David Petraeus' forthcoming report on the "surge" in Iraq and presidential budget vetoes; but once those tactics are played the political string runs out. President Bush will be left with the unalloyed counsel of Vice President Dick Cheney, whose endgame transcends Rove's machinations. "I don't worry about the polls," Cheney said on CNN's "Larry King Live" on July 31. One more hypothetical restraint on Cheney has been removed.

Rove's resignation marks a tacit recognition of the failure of his theory of political realignment, though hardly of its consequences. Trailing him out of the West Wing is the cloud of a subpoena from the Senate Judiciary Committee that seeks his testimony about his primary role in purging U.S. attorneys for partisan purposes. But even when Rove leaves government service at the end of August, Bush will extend the protective cover of executive privilege.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2007/08/13/karl_rove/feed/ 101 Will the real Colin Powell stand up? http://www.salon.com/2007/08/09/iraq_powell/ http://www.salon.com/2007/08/09/iraq_powell/#comments Thu, 09 Aug 2007 11:40:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/opinion//blumenthal/2007/08/09/iraq_powell Every movement, gesture and tic of the Bush administration is shadowed by its past. When National Intelligence Director Michael McConnell was deployed politically to overawe timorous legislators into approving unlimited and warrantless domestic surveillance, he was acting in the shadow of former CIA Director George Tenet, whose presence was used to lend credibility to intelligence being fixed to suit arguments for the invasion of Iraq. As Gen. David Petraeus prepares to deliver his report in September on the "surge" in Iraq, he is elevated into the ultimate reliable source, just as former Secretary of State Colin Powell's sterling reputation was exploited for his delivery of the case for invasion before the United Nations Security Council on Feb. 5, 2003, a date that will live in mendacity, for every statement he made was later revealed to be false; Powell regretted publicly that it was an everlasting "blot" on his good name. Meanwhile, during the dog days of August, the president's aides are preparing the fall public relations campaign to envelop Petraeus' report. On cue, neoconservative organs spew out good news of "progress on the ground" and thrash critics as "defeatist." "Defeatists in Retreat" trumpets William Kristol's latest screed in the Weekly Standard, repackaging old themes once again.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2007/08/09/iraq_powell/feed/ 109 The three stooges http://www.salon.com/2007/08/02/alberto_gonzales/ http://www.salon.com/2007/08/02/alberto_gonzales/#comments Thu, 02 Aug 2007 11:40:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/opinion//blumenthal/2007/08/02/alberto_gonzales Omertà (or a code of silence) has become the final bond holding the Bush administration together. Honesty is dishonorable; silence is manly; penitence is weakness. Loyalty trumps law. Protecting higher-ups is patriotism. Stonewalling is idealism. Telling the truth is informing. Cooperation with investigators is cowardice; breaking the code is betrayal. Once the code is shattered, however, no one can be trusted and the entire edifice crumbles.

If Attorney General Alberto Gonzales were miraculously to tell the truth, or if he were to resign or be removed, the secret government of the past six years would be unlocked. So long as a Republican Congress rigorously engaged in enforcing no oversight was smugly complicit through its passive ignorance and abdication of constitutional responsibility, the White House was secure in enacting its theories of the imperial presidency. An executive bound only by his self-proclaimed fiat in his capacity as commander in chief became his own law in authorizing torture and warrantless domestic wiretapping and data mining. Following the notion of the unitary executive, in which the departments and agencies have no independent existence under the president, the White House has relentlessly politicized them. Callow political appointees dictate to scientists, censoring or altering their conclusions. Career staff professionals are forced to attend indoctrination sessions on the political strategies of the Republican Party in campaigns and elections. And U.S. attorneys, supposedly impartial prosecutors representing the Department of Justice in the states, are purged if they deviate in any way from the White House's political line.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2007/08/02/alberto_gonzales/feed/ 92 Operation Iraq betrayal http://www.salon.com/2007/07/26/cheney/ http://www.salon.com/2007/07/26/cheney/#comments Thu, 26 Jul 2007 11:50:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/opinion//blumenthal/2007/07/26/cheney President Bush's political strategy at home is an implicit if unintended admission of the failure of his military strategy in Iraq and toward terrorism generally. Betrayal is his theme, delivered in his speeches, embroidered by his officials and trumpeted by the brass band of neoconservative publicists. The foundation for his stab-in-the-back theory was laid in the beginning.

"Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists," Bush said in his joint address to Congress nine days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. And in the weeks that followed he repeated variations of his formula, reducing it to "for or against us in the war on terrorism." At the Charleston, S.C., Air Force Base on Tuesday, Bush resumed his repudiated habit of conflating threats, suggesting a connection between 9/11 and the Iraq war, and intensified his blaming of domestic critics for the shortcomings of his policy. His story line depends upon omitting his own part in the calamity. "The facts are," insisted Bush to his captive audience, "that al-Qaida terrorists killed Americans on 9/11, they're fighting us in Iraq and across the world, and they are plotting to kill Americans here at home again."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2007/07/26/cheney/feed/ 44 Cooking the intelligence, again http://www.salon.com/2007/07/19/bush_iraq_8/ http://www.salon.com/2007/07/19/bush_iraq_8/#comments Thu, 19 Jul 2007 11:30:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/opinion//blumenthal/2007/07/19/bush_iraq One of the more memorable and revealing statements explaining the nature of the Bush administration buildup to the invasion of Iraq was offered in September 2002 by then White House chief of staff Andrew Card. "From a marketing point of view," he said, "you don't introduce new products in August." Five years later, a period longer than the Civil War and World War II, the administration is preparing to present its case for continuing the surge in Iraq. But rather than waiting for September, when Gen. David Petraeus is scheduled to deliver his report, the administration has moved up the marketing to July.

The familiar props are rolled out, like the well-worn and peeling painted backdrop for a production of a traveling Victorian theatrical troupe, and members of the audience are expected to watch with rapt fascination, as though they had never seen this show before. The negative response to the preview does not alter the same old script.

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