I am sorry to be late with this weekend review, but I was at a conference the last two days. So let’s briefly review; very briefly, to be truthful, because I’m not sure if I can contain my bile if we look at this blather in detail.

Here up at bat is this week’s designated spinner, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley on THIS WEEK ON ABC commenting on the amendments by Senators John Warner and Richard Lugar calling for the president to start planning now for a redeployment out of Iraq . He is about to engage in what is called damning with faint praise: 

HADLEY: Well, look, these are two serious men and I’ve talked to them about Iraq. We’ll continue to do so.. I think what’s important is to recognize in some sense what they’re not saying. These two men are not calling for an arbitrary deadline for withdrawal or withdrawal schedule. Secondly, they talk about how important success in Iraq is to American security here at home. They made that link. And secondly — and thirdly, they talk about how we’ll probably have to be engaged in Iraq for a substantial period of time.
 
What they’ve called for is to begin now talking about planning and they’ve raised some interesting issues that we need to think about as we see how we might move to a next phase in Iraq when our military forces might have a different role. But the point is that in legislation the Congress adopted in May with the support and cooperation of Senator Warner, a very sensible schedule was laid out, which begins in September with the report from Ambassador Crocker, ambassador in Baghdad, General Petraeus, our local commander, about where we are, an assessment of where our current policy is and recommendations about how to go forward.
 
STEPHANOPOULOS: So a lot of kind words there, but you’re not for the amendment?
 
HADLEY: They’ve done a useful service in indicating the kinds of things that we should be thinking about but the time to begin that process is September and the opening shot really ought to be to hear from the commanders on the ground who will make an assessment of where we are in our current strategy.

Hadley continued his rap over on Fox News Sunday:

 How confident are you that you’ll be able to hold the line in the Senate on this issue?
 
HADLEY: Well, we’ve had a pretty good week in that respect. And one of the things that’s interesting, there’s been a lot of attention on the comments that Senator Lugar and Senator Warner have made in the legislation they’ve introduced. It’s interesting, if you look at that, they are not calling for an arbitrary withdrawal deadline or a withdrawal schedule. They are also talking and recognizing that what happens in Iraq deeply affects American security at home.
 
And if you listen to them, they are all talking, also talking about, we’re going to have to be engaged as a country in Iraq in some form for a considerable period of time. All they’re simply saying is we need to think about now how we can transition to a new phase in Iraq when –
 
HUME: So you could live with a resolution to that effect?
 
HADLEY: No. Because what we’ve already got, through legislation adopted last May was a very orderly process adopted by the Congress, signed by the president, which says it begins in September, it begins with a report from our commander on the ground, General Petraeus, our ambassador on the ground, Ryan Crocker, they will come back, they will be in September, supplemented by a series of reports from outside the administration. And that will be the time to consider the kinds of questions and issues these gentlemen have raised.

Fortunately for the Democrat’s reputation Sen. Jim Webb showed some spine on Meet The Press: 

RUSSERT: Are you trying to wrest control of the war from the president in effect, along with the Republicans?
 
WEBB: No. I think that any administrative discretion, any executive power, has its limits. And the Congress has the authority not only to appropriate but to put conditions on, for instance, how our troops are being used. You can go back, for instance — if you want to look at the amendment that I offered, which Senator Graham and a number of others opposed, even though we got 56 votes — the provision goes back to something the Congress did when Harry Truman was president, when they were sending troops to Korea, who had not been trained, and the Congress stepped in and said you can’t send anybody overseas until they’ve been in the military for 120 days. We’re trying to do this on the other end. Four years into a war, you have to be able to put some rational limits on how our troops are being used. We’ve got soldiers and Marines right now who are spending more time in Iraq than they are in the States. And the Executive Branch isn’t speaking up; the Congress has the constitutional power to do so, and that’s what we were trying to do.

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