What's Petraeus going to report in September? Kerry called it during the funding vote.

[ProSense]

What's Petraeus going to report given the news and the http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1591972&mesg_id=1591972">outlook for Iraq?

From the LA Times:

Despite Bush's repeated statements that the report will reflect evaluations by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, administration officials said it would actually be written by the White House, with inputs from officials throughout the government.

And though Petraeus and Crocker will present their recommendations on Capitol Hill, legislation passed by Congress leaves it to the president to decide how to interpret the report's data.

This allows the president to certify whatever the president wants, to waive whatever the president wants. And I promise to my colleagues, we will be back here in September having the same debate with the same benchmark questions and they will not have moved in their accountability. -- John Kerry

We don’t have to wait until September to know that we need a new policy.

[meegbear]

1. Whatever the WH writes up ...

his input appears to be irrelevant now, even if it was all good.

[Richard Steele]

4. Yup. Looks like Petraeus is nothing but the voice-over man for this one.

Hardly surprising, given who we're dealing with here.

[ProSense]

2. Kick! n/t

[beachmom]

3. If I had bought stock in the "Kerry was right" Company back in 2004,

I'd be a rich woman, and ready to retire by now.

[karynnj]

5. The process described in the LAT sounds more Orwellian than anything

not written by Orwell.

The White House gets to write the report and interpret the data. Kerry was 100% right.

[babylonsister]

6. I remember Kerry saying that; right again. nt

[frazzled]

7. We must change the debate ...

Wesley Clark's keynote speech at the recent Yearly Kos convention focused on one thing: we must shift the debate from one about whether the surge is working or not to one about how George Bush's policy is failed.

The generals are given missions by the civilian leaders. They have their orders and will try to do their job. It's not about the numbers of this or that: it's about Bush's failed policy. If we don't shift this debate, according to Clark, we are going to lose it: because the administration has control of the tactical debate. We don't want to debate on their ground--we need to shift it to ours.

It was a pretty compelling argument.

[karynnj]

8. That has been the intention of most Democrats in Congress

That was the point of the bill passed in both houses that Bush vetoed early this year. It is what Kerry, Feingold and 11 other Senators pushed for in mid 2006. I agree with Clark that it is not just the surge that is not working, but Bush's entire policy.

Clark's speech is excellent, but it is not a new direction. The issue has been on changing the policy.

[ProSense]

9. Kick! n/t