One War, No Answers

Gen. John Abizaid's warning that violence must be controlled within six months? "I doubt that General Abizaid meant to pick a particular point on the calendar," Pace said.

Abizaid's caution that the military couldn't sustain a big increase of troops in Iraq? "The United States military can today and tomorrow handle any additional challenge."

Over in Amman, White House aide Bartlett was delivering the less-cheerful tidings that Maliki would be skipping the meeting that Bush had rearranged his schedule to attend -- and that the postponement to today had nothing to do with a leaked White House memo saying Maliki was either ignorant or incompetent.

"Since the king of Jordan and Prime Minister Maliki had a bilateral themselves, earlier today, everybody believed that negated the purpose for the three of them to meet tonight," Bartlett argued.

He continued this line of logic: "They had a very good conversation, and afterwards they felt, well, since we had good conversations, we addressed issues, there was not an agenda for the three for a trilateral that they felt was necessary."

No agenda? It was an odd way to characterize the Iraq war, civil or otherwise. But Bartlett and his colleagues were not the only ones feeling unhurried.

NBC's Andrea Mitchell discovered that the Baker-Hamilton commission had taken time from its deliberations for "a class photo . . . shot by celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz." The Washington Post's Robin Wright learned yesterday that Men's Vogue would be publishing the spread.

"Through coverage of art and architecture, travel and food, politics and finance, books and sports, custom tailoring and fine watches," the magazine's mission statement says, it "will define a new male sensibility -- smart, worldly, mature, and ready to discover more." Such as how to fix Iraq.