Cheney's Unforgivable Egotism

"This arrogance, plus the rising death figure, should push the war to the front of any agenda about this nation's future. It remains the central topic by any measure of lives, national reputation or financial cost."

Meanwhile, In Iraq

Sholnn Freeman writes in The Washington Post: "Followers of influential Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr launched a civil strike Monday to protest raids and mass arrests by Iraq's security forces, underscoring the growing frustrations of Sadr's group, which U.S. military officials say is playing a key role in keeping down violence in Iraq."

Abu Ghraib Revisited

Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris write in the New Yorker: "The low-ranking reservist soldiers who took and appeared in the infamous images were singled out for opprobrium and punishment; they were represented, in government reports, in the press, and before courts-martial, as rogues who acted out of depravity. Yet the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib was de facto United States policy. The authorization of torture and the decriminalization of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of captives in wartime have been among the defining legacies of the current Administration; and the rules of interrogation that produced the abuses documented on the M.I. block in the fall of 2003 were the direct expression of the hostility toward international law and military doctrine that was found in the White House, the Vice-President's office, and at the highest levels of the Justice and Defense Departments."

Richard Cohen writes in his Washington Post opinion column that "the shame of Abu Ghraib will forever stain George Bush and his top aides. For them, the photos from Abu Ghraib are not pictures. They're mirrors."

More Cheney

Cheney's ostensibly travelled to the Middle East to encourage peace. But in his interview with Raddatz and in a roundtable interview yesterday with travel pool reporters, the vice president had a hard time identifying any recent forward movement -- and further encouraged speculation that he is fomenting some kind of action against Iran.

Raddatz: "The President always talks about two steps forward, one step back; that's what happens in the Mideast. I --"

Cheney: "I think that's right."

Raddatz: "I can't see the two steps forward. Are there two steps forward?"

Cheney: "Well, I think if you look, for example, at the President, I think, broke new ground when he came out, and subsequently has continued to support the proposition of two states, a Palestinian state. No other President has ever supported that publicly, he has, the idea of two states side by side, Israelis and Palestinians living in peace with one another. That's a step forward."

And in the roundtable interview, regarding Iran:

Q: "[Y]ou said, when you were standing with Prime Minister Olmert, that you would never ask the Israelis to do anything that would threaten their own security. And I'm wondering, if they came to you and the President and said, we need to strike Iran to maintain our own security, would you try to stop them?"

Cheney: "That's a hypothetical question, Steve."