The Monday ‘BushWhack’ing

Another start of another week, is it November yet?

• Gen. David Petraeus appears on Capitol Hill tomorrow along side Ambassador Ryan Crocker and “is expected to call for halting troop reductions” for about six months so he can better assess the security situation. Under his recommendation, there would be “about 140,000 troops in Iraq” which is 10,000 more than before the surge of troops last year… (so instead of ebbing troops in the region, we’re gonna keep them as is; because that’s been oh-so-successful up to this point… give me fucking break…)
• Mark Penn resigned his post on the Clinton campaign… about time. The man was an albatross around the campaign’s neck from the start, and he should have been fired long ago. Waiting this long, one has to wonder if the campaign will be able to rebound. Stay tuned.
• And we have our PassportGate patsy! The deputy assistant secretary responsible for overseeing passport services, Ann Barrett, is stepping down… though the state department says the two are not related… (Riiiiiiight)
• Speaking of Sen. Clinton… after a hospital raised questions over the accuracy of a stump speech story about an uninsured pregnant woman who died after being denied medical care, the campaign announced that she will stop telling the story… (Should we be shocked more that the campaign may have used a story with an iffy history or that they admitted something was wrong and cut the story themselves? My vote is for the latter, but that’s just me…)
• “President” Bush will address the nation this Thursday about the Iraq war following Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker’s testimony to Congress about the status of the war. (Do I really have to listen to the man speak again? I find it painful to listen to him and his muddled, slangy assault on the English language… and honestly, will he really say anything that he hasn’t already said? I highly doubt it…)
• Sen. Clinton predicted “more twists and turns” in the primary battle with Sen. Obama… (wait, what?)
• Sen. McCain criticized Sen. Obama this past Saturday for not denouncing comments from a speaker at a North Dakota Democratic Party event that called McCain a “warmonger.” (Um… am I missing something? After all, McCain IS a warmonger, isn’t he?)
• The New York Times reports on a survey by the Army surgeon general’s Mental Health Advisory Team that shows the mental health toll of repeated deployments on U.S. troops is having a seriously adverse effect with more than one in four showing signs of anxiety, depression or acute stress… (and yet Petraeus is going to call for troop levels to remain high. He has to know that something has to give eventually, right??)
• Presidents Bush and Putin met for the last time this past Sunday… and how the meeting went largely depends on whom you ask. Bush hailed the conversation as “a significant breakthrough” on the contentious issue of missile defense while Putin was “more cautious” and said the meeting did not provide any breakthrough… (I guess it depends on what your definition of significant is…)
• And have we mentioned? That Donald Rumsfeld, David Addington and John Yoo may want to cancel any future trips overseas? The Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan said that recent release of the Yoo torture memo means that the three “should not leave the United States anytime soon” as it’s very likely that they will, at some point, be “indicted for war crimes.” (And wouldn’t that make for some entertaining theater? And perhaps a boost for the Democrat presidential candidates…)