They Won't Follow Us Home

Digging Deep for Good News

The White House press office had to dig pretty deep this morning to find anybody outside the administration expressing anything but pessimism about the situation in Iraq. One of today's clips sent to the pres corps: A story headlined "Iraqis happy" by Peter Marcus of the Denver Daily News, a small tabloid that gets distributed for free in Denver.

"Despite startling statistics which indicate that one in four Iraqis have had a family member murdered and that one in four Baghdad residents have had a relative kidnapped, most Iraqis are happier with life," Marcus writes, based on a poll conducted by a British firm called Opinion Research Business.

By comparison, Gary Langer writes for ABC News on the result of the latest poll by ABC News, USA Today, the BBC and ARD German TV. He writes: "A new national survey paints a devastating portrait of life in Iraq: widespread violence, torn lives, displaced families, emotional damage, collapsing services, an ever starker sectarian chasm -- and a draining away of the underlying optimism that once prevailed."

Paul Reynolds writes for the BBC: "This latest survey of Iraqi opinion is a reminder to policy-makers in Washington, London and Baghdad of the strength of opposition to the presence of foreign troops in Iraq.

"Although the Bush administration is more interested in the results of its troop surge than the findings of this survey, it will take note perhaps of one figure: the number of Iraqis who approve of attacks on coalition troops has risen from 17% in a similar survey three years ago to 51% now."

Protest Watch

Sarah Karush writes for the Associated Press: "Thousands of Christians prayed for peace at an anti-war service Friday night at the Washington National Cathedral, kicking off a weekend of protests around the country to mark the fourth anniversary of the war in Iraq.

"Afterward, participants marched with battery-operated faux candles through snow and wind toward the White House, where police began arresting protesters shortly before midnight."

Police "said 222 people had been arrested by Saturday morning."

Will Rove Testify?

Sheryl Gay Stolberg writes in the New York Times: "The Democratic senator leading the inquiry into the dismissal of federal prosecutors insisted Sunday that Karl Rove and other top aides to President Bush must testify publicly and under oath, setting up a confrontation between Congress and the White House, which has said it is unlikely to agree to such a demand.

"Some Republicans have suggested that Mr. Rove testify privately, if only to tamp down the political uproar over the inquiry, which centers on whether the White House allowed politics to interfere with law enforcement.

"But Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, seemed to rule out such a move on Sunday. He said his committee would vote Thursday on whether to issue subpoenas for Mr. Rove as well as Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel, and William K. Kelley, the deputy White House counsel. . . .

"One Republican strategist close to the White House, speaking on the condition of anonymity so as not to appear to be representing the administration, said: 'No president is going to let their senior staff assistant to the president go testify. Forget that. They might agree to do an informal interview, but they'll never testify.'"