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Reflecting on Bush's speech last night, I was struck by just how deep Bush has backed himself into a corner on Iraq. He's now characterized both the situation and the mission in Iraq in terms that bear little resemblance to the facts on the ground. Indeed, Sen. Chuck Hagel is quite correct in saying that "The White House is completely disconnected from reality." If the United States is going to get to a worthwhile end-state in Iraq, we're going to have to change direction drastically.

That does not mean a timeline, however. As Bob Dreyfuss and I were talking about his two-part series on an Iraqi exit strategy, (Here's Part I and Part II) the realization struck me that what we needed was a sophisticated peace process that could capture all the various layers of this puzzle. The example that came to mind was the process in Northern Ireland that led to the Good Friday Accords.

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Current Score for the First Amendment
Maintaining Freedoms: 1  Restricting Freedoms: 1

In Washington, the first amendment is in full play this summer. So far, the score is tied. Too bad the winning record of the Washington Nationals isn’t rubbing off on the Constitution.

As the U.S. Supreme Court concluded its session, the expected flood of opinions surfaced. Monday’s decision about the Ten Commandments is mostly good for the preservation of freedom of speech, but leaves room for interpretation. The question becomes: when do the Ten Commandments promote religious teachings and when are they a historical reference? According to the court, if the Ten Commandments are surrounded by other monuments and are displayed in a museum-like context, then it’s okay. As John Nichols, of The Nation, interprets the ruling: “It is unconstitutional for politicians to use the Ten Commandments, or any other statement of religious principle, as battering ram against Mr. Jefferson's wall [between church and state].”

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Yesterday, I discussed the Chinese bid for Unocal and how progressives ought to view the move. Today the Financial Times reports that Iran's newly elected president, Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, is considering a "total overhaul" of the Iranian oil sector, to include increased foreign investment under conditions that favor Chinese investors. The timing could not be more interesting.

So I'm still arguing that progressives are better served by allowing China to enter the global energy major leagues rather than excluding them and thus pushing China to seek out energy supplies by non-economic means. Today's Iranian development just reinforces the conundrum for Bush's fossilized energy strategy.

First, the Iranian move. The FT article, by Carlos Hoyos and Gareth Smyth (sorry, this one is subscription only) describe conditions that are not economically attractive to private-sector energy companies like those in the United States, Europe and Japan. The new Iranian president has vowed to protect Iranian oil companies by continuing to back a type of contract, a "buy-back," that presents an obstacle to foreign investors. Here's a clip from the FT:

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You know those folks who made up Bush's base during the last election? (And we're talking about his real base—the millions of middle Americans who voted on conservative values—not the small group of big-money donors he called his base.) Well, it's only six months into Bush's second term, and it turns out the values those folks voted for aren't the ones they're seeing in action. A new poll shows these base voters are not happy with the president's ideas about protecting seniors citizens, kids and disabled people—and provides a chance to make some inferences about who they will and won't support next time around.

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It is obvious from the Republican strategy on Social Security that the GOP does not mind adopting policies that are mathematically impossible so long as they are only impossible in the medium to long term. That same conundrum is about to come to pass in the case of the Chinese buyout of the American oil firm, Unocal.

To cut to the chase, the Chinese offer has forced Bush to decide whether he is a free-trader or an America-firster. He cannot be both. If Bush decides that the CNOOC's $18.5 billion bid for Unocal is a threat to national security, he will implicitly say that Chinese money is not as good as European and Japanese money and confirm that the biggest concern facing America right now is energy—where we get it and how we use it. In doing so, he will only add fuel to the analytical fire about why we went to war in Iraq.

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The White House is feeling the heat over Iraq and Guantanamo, so Karl Rove tries to change the subject. With public disapproval about Iraq growing and more lawmakers willing to step up and criticize Bush's war and human rights record, Rove reaches into his diversionary bag of tricks and pulls out the worn, dog-eared accusation that liberals are pansies. In ridiculing groups like MoveOn for counseling "moderation and restraint" in the days following 9/11, Rove must never have expected a 9/11 widow to come to the wimpy liberals' defense.

At 30, Kristen Breitweiser lost her husband in the World Trade Center attacks. She says the attacks left her with "no faith in my government." The tragedy transformed her into a citizen activist—-well-known for her efforts with the other "Jersey Girls " to hold the government accountable for investigating 9/11. Four years later, Breitweiser has become the most credible kind of advocate for sanity after 9/11—-she has the authority as someone who has befallen great tragedy to advocate against policies based on revenge and fear.

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Birth control—it's the surefire way to cut down on unwanted pregnancies, abortions and sexually transmitted infections. And no matter what else their values, making sure that birth control and education about birth control is widely available and affordable should be among the priorities of health advocates from the left and the right. It might be logical, but that doesn't mean it's happening. Instead, right-wing legislatures are—again—taking steps to keep young women from taking control of their bodies and making responsible choices. This time, their tool is called the Parents Right To Know Act.

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The cover story in  this week’s issue of The Economist shows a brick, labeled “House Prices” plummeting earthward, underscored with the headline, “After the fall.”

The prospect of a bursting U.S. housing bubble is the most significant near-term threat to the American economy, yet there is hardly a peep from Democrats. Indeed, progressive economic discourse is predominantly stuck on the “Just Say No” campaign of the Social Security issue. When it diverges from that theme, it picks up on one of two tried-and-true issues: health care or trade.

This is not to say that preserving Social Security, making health care affordable and restoring a fair and sustainable international trading system are not worthwhile tasks. Indeed, they represent three of the most important medium- to long-term hazards facing the nation. The problem is, the housing bubble represents a near-term threat whose consequences are staggering. A collapse in the U.S. housing market threatens to decimate the main pillar of retirees’ capital assets, a significant source of disposable income for working families, and trigger a chain reaction that could result in an unprecedented global economic downturn.

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With all their high-minded rhetoric about the virtues of democracy, partisan conservatives should know that meddling with the political content of the media strikes at a core democratic value. It's one of the oldest totalitarian tactics in the book. The Bush administration's hypocrisy on democracy is nothing new, but the scandal unfolding around PBS might get the public's attention in a way that clampdowns on Iraqi news agencies do not. That’s why the story of Ken Tomlinson hiring a consultant to grade PBS content as “pro-” or “anti-” Bush should get wide distribution. The consultant also categorized programming as "anti-corporation" and "anti-DeLay."

Today on TomPaine.com and in The Washington Post , Bill Moyers reminds us that public broadcasting's mission is to educate and inform viewers. Moyers writes:

Deep down, the public harbors an intuitive understanding that for all the flaws of public television; our fundamental assumptions come down on their side, and on the side of democracy.

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In what The New York Times described as "a classically surreal Internet moment," many people have been summarily deleting action e-mails from advocacy groups encouraging the receiver to sign a petition asking Congress not to cut funding for PBS and NPR. It's not that these folks are against "Sesame Street" and "All Things Considered." It's just that e-mails with similar content have been circulating for more than 10 years as a hoax, and frustrated e-citizens are chalking up this new, authentic call to action as just so much more spam.

Turns out that a few students started circulating a petition urging recipients to contact their representatives back in 1995, when Republicans were pushing for cuts. The quickly conceived campaign wasn't factually acurate or well-planned. But the campaign spiraled out of control, and the e-mails were continually circulated months and years after the threat to funding disappeared, living on as annoying hoax. In fact,  "The Case of the Pointless Petition" was one of the most-visited on Urbanlegends.about.com, a site debunking common e-mail and Internet hoaxes.

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