Thinking back over the blather last week over Sen. Reid’s (D-NV) comments about Gen. Pace, it’s quite astonishing that the White House could with a straight face attack Reid for questioning Pace’s competence only day’s after they’d fired him. Think about that. The White House fires Pace as part of its many-month effort to sack everyone from the Rumsfeld era at the Pentagon. And Reid is in hot water for questioning the man’s abilities?

But setting aside abilities, politicians can criticize generals. That is after all the very nature of our political system. And it is a symptom of the deeply decayed and desperate state of the Iraq War debate that this is even a question. We are now far past the point of supporting the troops in their mission, ensuring that they are properly armed and protected, or anything else tied to respecting and honoring the overwhelmingly very young men and women who are paying with risk to their lives for the decisions we collectively make here at home.

Now apparently even criticism of the policy/strategy level command in Washington (this is after all what the JCS are) is beyond the pale, a sign of denigration of the military itself.

We can say whatever we want about double standards, that Sen. McCain (R-AZ) said even more to the face of the then-actual commander of American forces in Iraq (Gen. Casey) not long ago. But that’s just a partisan distraction.

The real issue here is shaking ourselves loose from the degradation of our own civic and republican collective character that the war has brought us. Some principles are clear and worth repeating: You can’t have a war for democracy fought by people whose principles are authoritarian and anti-democratic. It’s not a throwaway line or a barb. It’s the only pivot around which to understand the Bush years.

A few days ago, Andrew Sullivan linked to this rancid post by Glenn Reynolds previewing the coming claims that the war was sabotaged by the critics of the war who had more or less no power whatsoever during the entire prosecution of it.

But Reynolds’ post and all his prefab reader emails should put us on notice that the architects of this and its dead-ender supports plan to lie their way out of this war just as they lied their way into it — now whipping up a dust storm of rationalizations for their failures, imbecilities and lies much as the original entry into the conflict was floated on phoney claims about weapons of mass destruction and nonexistent ties between the past Iraqi regime and al Qaeda.

The only antidote to the advance of this sort of authoritarian mentality and strategy of organized lying that it is inevitably built on is the truth. Not that we can know the truth ourselves with any confidence or consistency. But we can take stock of the facts of the case as honestly as we can and speak them frankly. And that means breaking out of, ignoring, as many rhetorical bait and switch games as possible.

Obama unleashes sharp attack on his own campaign staff over Hillary “Punjab” oppo document controversy.

Late Update: Obama releases new statement taking full responsibility for the screwup.

Spencer Ackerman on whether Special Operations Forces have their own Pentagon-approved rules for detainee abuse — away from the prying eyes of military investigators and Congress.

Whenever you hear the administration crowing about the progress the Iraqi parliament has made towards passing its oil law, keep this in mind.

From Landay at McClatchy …

Wrangling between Bush administration aides and U.S. intelligence agencies is holding up talks with Moscow on future monitoring of the thousands of nuclear weapons that the United States and Russia still aim at one another.

The 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) established the elaborate scheme of inspections, data sharing, advance missile test notifications and satellite surveillance. But the accord will expire in December 2009, and the U.S. spy satellites that locate and count Russian missile sites are stretched thin by the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, concerns about North Korea’s and Iran’s nuclear programs and other threats, current and former U.S. officials and experts said.

Administration policymakers argue that the monitoring system is an outdated vestige of the Cold War that restricts the Pentagon’s ability to respond to new threats. They want to replace it with an informal system of looser inspections that would allow the United States to do things such as replacing nuclear warheads with conventional warheads on intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Mitt Romney tries yet again to explain his shifting positions on abortion. Very, very slowly…

Fred Thompson likely to announce Presidential bid after July 4. That and other political news of the day in today’s Election Central Happy Hour Roundup.

Obama, Clinton and Edwards giving speeches today to two of their toughest constituencies: Big Labor and the liberal activists of the Take Back America 2007 conference. That and other political news of the day in today’s Election Central Morning Roundup.

Late Update: In his speech, Obama is planning to emphasize his early opposition to the war.

Today’s Must Read: yet another former Justice Department official’s testimony is called into question. This time it’s voter suppression svengali Hans von Spakovsky.

What will America stand for in the world in the Post-Bush Era?

In The Idea that Is America, Princeton Dean and TPMCafe regular Anne-Marie Slaughter argues that we cannot give up the idea of a values-based foreign policy and must reengage the America traditions of liberty, democracy, equality, tolerance, faith, justice, and humility. By reconnecting with those American and universal values we can reclaim our moral standing on the global stage.

She’ll be discussing the argument in TPMCafe’s Book Club this week with Rachel Kleinfeld, Bruce Jentleson, David Shorr, Suzanne Nossel, Lee Feinstein, Michael Levy and David Rieff. Check it out.