The conservative myth that PBS is some kind of hotbed for liberalism isn’t true, but to see the network go out of its way to prove its conservative bona fides is disconcerting.

Two months ago, PBS gave Richard Perle a whole hour to repeat discredited neocon arguments about Iraq and the Middle East, including the notion that Saddam Hussein had a working relationship with al Qaeda, and the bizarre argument that Osama bin Laden’s “network has been destroyed.” As Media Matters noted, Perle’s PBS special “made a series of assertions about the Iraq war that have already been shown to be false.”

It appears that PBS is going down a similar road this month, with a special on religious liberty called “Wall of Separation.”

The “wall of separation” is a metaphor deeply embedded in the American consciousness. Most Americans assume that the First Amendment prevents the mixing of politics and religion. The freedom of religion clauses protect individuals from the entanglement of religion with government and secure the right to freely exercise religious faith. America is a religiously pluralistic culture guided by a secular government.

But what would surprise most Americans is the discovery that this is not what the Founding Fathers intended when they established the nation and wrote the Constitution and Bill of Rights. In fact, they had a radically different interpretation of the role of religion in state and federal governments.

Uh oh. This reads a bit like a pamphlet from Focus on the Family. In fact, “Wall of Separation” is a production of Boulevard Pictures, which explained on its website that this PBS special will explain that the Founding Fathers had “a radically different definition” of religious liberty than what we have today, and that “the modern understanding of the role of religion in the public square is exactly the opposite of what the Founders intended.”

If this is starting to sound to you like religious right rhetoric, we’re on the same page.

As my friends at Americans United for Separation of Church and State found, there’s reason to be skeptical about this new PBS special and those who put it together.

When Corporation for Public Broadcasting Chairman Kenneth Tomlinson, a close Karl Rove ally, took over PBS a few years ago, he told the Association of Public Television Stations along with officials from the CPB and PBS that they should make sure their programming “better reflected the Republican mandate.”

I think we’re seeing the results of Tomlinson’s agenda.

In April, we learned about a disconcerting controversy out of Wisconsin in which U.S. Attorney for Milwaukee Steve Biskupic brought highly dubious charges against Georgia Thompson, the state purchasing supervisor for Gov. Jim Doyle’s (D) administration, accusing Thompson of corruption. By all appearances, it was one of the more shameless politically-motivated prosecutions of the year.

The last time we checked in on the controversy, a federal appeals court swiftly rejected the prosecution and admonished Biskupic for filing the charges in the first place. Thompson was released, but the imprisonment and wrongful prosecution has left quite a scar on her career.

Given the circumstances, it’s not surprising that Thompson expects reimbursement. (thanks to reader V.S.)

A state worker who spent four months in a federal prison before having her conviction reversed on appeal filed a claim with the state Friday for nearly $360,000. […]

“Payment will not undo the emotional trauma of such charges and wrongful incarceration, but it will help her put the pieces back together,” Thompson lawyer Stephen Hurley wrote in the claim.

State Sen. Russ Decker (D), a member of the Claims Board, said he was inclined to support the request payment, but wants to see the U.S. Department of Justice foot the bill.

“I certainly will take a good look at it, but the person who ought to pay the bill is (U.S. Attorney Steven M.) Biskupic,” Decker said. “He’s the guy who screwed it up by going after a political agenda.”

I wish I could say this comes as a surprise, but the Bush administration is pushing hard to once again restrict any judicial flexibility and impose mandatory minimums in sentencing.

The Bush administration is trying to roll back a Supreme Court decision by pushing legislation that would require prison time for nearly all criminals. […]

In a speech June 1 to announce the bill, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales urged Congress to reimpose mandatory minimum prison sentences against federal convicts — and not let judges consider such penalties “merely a suggestion.”

Such an overhaul, in part, “will strengthen our hand in fighting criminals who threaten the safety and security of all Americans,” Gonzales said in the speech, delivered three days before the FBI announced a slight national uptick in violent crime during 2006.

U.S. District Judge Paul G. Cassell, chairman of the Criminal Law committee of the Judicial Conference, the judicial branch’s policy-making body, is not pleased.

“This would require one-size-fits-all justice,” Cassell said. “The vast majority of the public would like the judges to make the individualized decisions needed to make these very difficult sentencing decisions. Judges are the ones who look the defendants in the eyes. They hear from the victims. They hear from the prosecutors.”

The Globe added that congressional Republicans “are seizing the administration’s crackdown … as a campaign issue for 2008.”

Given what we’ve seen and learned over the last several months, one might assume that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales would go out of his way to avoid anything that even came close to politicizing U.S. Attorneys’ offices.

But Gonzales is apparently incapable of restraint. Knowing that there is literally nothing he could do to get fired, our embattled Attorney General is reportedly “tightening the leash” on federal prosecutors. (via TP)

Gonzales described what he delicately calls “a more vigorous and a little bit more formal process” for annually evaluating prosecutors. What that means, as he explained it, is hauling in every U.S. attorney for a meeting to hear, among other things, politicians’ beefs against the prosecutor.

If that should happen, expect the fair-mindedness and independence Americans still count on from their Justice Department to slip.

In testimony to Congress and comments at the National Press Club, Gonzales framed the meetings as a way of improving communications. But it also looks a lot like a way to remind recalcitrant U.S. attorneys what the home team expects.

And what might this “formal process” include? As of Friday, the Justice Department said it is considering one-on-one meetings between Gonzales and every U.S. attorney

As Gonzales describes it, these meetings will offer him an opportunity to let prosecutors know what they’re doing wrong, what lawmakers on the Hill are complaining about, what the DoJ’s expectations are of them, etc.

Except, as the Chicago Tribune’s Andrew Zajac explained, “[T]here’s already an evaluation process run by the Justice Department’s executive office for U.S. attorneys. But that only measures how well a prosecutor runs the office, not how loyal he or she is to the administration’s agenda.”

More New York firefighters emerge to slam Rudy and question his alleged 9/11 heroism. That and other political news of the day in today’s Election Central Sunday Roundup.

In February, the Washington Post’s Dana Priest and Anne Hull stunned the nation with an investigation of the outpatient services at Walter Reed. Americans simply couldn’t believe the treatment veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were receiving. The ensuing scandal led to three major resignations among top Army officials.

Today, Priest and Hull add to the story with a devastating report on the treatment veterans with post-traumatic stress receive — or in too many cases, don’t receive. Take, for example, Army Spec. Jeans Cruz, who helped capture Saddam Hussein and who received a hero’s welcome upon returning to the Bronx.

In public, the former Army scout stood tall for the cameras and marched in the parades. In private, he slashed his forearms to provoke the pain and adrenaline of combat. He heard voices and smelled stale blood. Soon the offers of help evaporated and he found himself estranged and alone, struggling with financial collapse and a darkening depression.

At a low point, he went to the local Department of Veterans Affairs medical center for help. One VA psychologist diagnosed Cruz with post-traumatic stress disorder. His condition was labeled “severe and chronic.” In a letter supporting his request for PTSD-related disability pay, the psychologist wrote that Cruz was “in need of major help” and that he had provided “more than enough evidence” to back up his PTSD claim. His combat experiences, the letter said, “have been well documented.”

None of that seemed to matter when his case reached VA disability evaluators. They turned him down flat, ruling that he deserved no compensation because his psychological problems existed before he joined the Army. They also said that Cruz had not proved he was ever in combat. “The available evidence is insufficient to confirm that you actually engaged in combat,” his rejection letter stated.

This despite the abundant evidence of his year in combat with the 4th Infantry Division.

Cruz has trouble working, but even more trouble fighting the VA and the Army to correct his medical records and his personal file so that he might qualify for aid. “I’m pushing the mental limits as it is,” Cruz said. “My experience so far is, you ask for something and they deny, deny, deny. After a while you just give up.”

Of course, Cruz’s case is not unique — as many as one-in-four American troops return from Iraq “psychologically wounded.” Unlike the Walter Reed debacle, which was largely a matter of breathtaking neglect, a variety of factors have created the mental-health problems for war veterans, including:

* Bureaucratic delays — Massive backlogs prevent efficient treatment and make it easier for troops in need to fall through the cracks.

* Lack of trained professionals — Licensed psychologists are leaving the military at a fast clip, in part because of the stress associated with treating pained soldiers. Troops who qualify for care end up with inexperienced counselors, who use “therapies better suited for alcoholics or marriage counseling.”

* Stigma of mental-health problems — Only 40 percent of the troops who screened positive for serious emotional problems sought help. Lt. Gen. John Vines, who led the 18th Airborne Corps in Iraq and Afghanistan, said countless officers keep quiet out of fear of being mislabeled, and many believe they will be denied future security clearances if they seek psychological help.

* Disability qualifications — “To qualify for compensation, troops and veterans are required to prove that they witnessed at least one traumatic event, such as the death of a fellow soldier or an attack from a roadside bomb, or IED. That standard has been used to deny thousands of claims.” The VA’s chief of mental health explained, “One of the things I puzzle about is, what if someone hasn’t been exposed to an IED but lives in dread of exposure to one for a month? According to the formal definition, they don’t qualify.”

It’s a painful and sobering piece about veterans who deserve a lot better than what they’re receiving. Take a look.

When it comes to credibility on the Abu Ghraib scandal, we can’t do much better than Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, the two-star Army general who led the first investigation into detainee abuse. As for what Taguba found during his investigation, the general believes senior Pentagon officials were, their denials notwithstanding, involved in directing the abusive interrogation policies.

Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba said that he felt mocked and shunned by top Pentagon officials, including then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, after filing an exhaustive report on the now-notorious Abu Ghraib abuse that sparked international outrage and led to an overhaul of the U.S. interrogation and detention policies. Taguba’s report examining the 800th Military Police Brigade put in plain terms what had been documented in shocking photographs.

In interviews with New Yorker reporter Seymour M. Hersh, Taguba said that he was ordered to limit his investigation to low-ranking soldiers who were photographed with the detainees and the soldiers’ unit, but that it was always his sense that the abuse was ordered at higher levels. Taguba was quoted as saying that he thinks top commanders in Iraq had extensive knowledge of the aggressive interrogation techniques that mirrored those used on high-value detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and that the military police “were literally being exploited by the military interrogators.”

Taguba also said that Rumsfeld misled Congress when he testified in May 2004 about the abuse investigation, minimizing how much he knew about the incidents. Taguba said that he met with Rumsfeld and top aides the day before the testimony.

“I know that my peers in the Army will be mad at me for speaking out, but the fact is that we violated the laws of land warfare in Abu Ghraib,” Taguba said, according to the article. “We violated the tenets of the Geneva Convention. We violated our own principles and we violated the core of our military values. The stress of combat is not an excuse, and I believe, even today, that those civilian and military leaders responsible should be held accountable.”

Hersh’s article is online. There’s quite a bit to digest — ThinkProgress summarized some of the highlights — but like Andrew Sullivan, I think this might be the most important quote in the piece:

“From what I knew, troops just don’t take it upon themselves to initiate what they did without any form of knowledge of the higher-ups,” Taguba told me. His orders were clear, however: he was to investigate only the military police at Abu Ghraib, and not those above them in the chain of command. “These M.P. troops were not that creative,” he said. “Somebody was giving them guidance, but I was legally prevented from further investigation into higher authority. I was limited to a box.”

Anyone who’s been following the news this week is surely aware of the violence this week between the two Palestinian territories — Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza. The two are increasingly isolated from one another, and the phrase “civil war” is increasingly used to describe the dynamic.

But how, exactly, are the two divided? What is the nature of the division? For those of us who occasionally need a primer on the history, the New York Times’ Craig Smith and Greg Myre have a very helpful background piece today, which fleshes out the details.

It’s worth checking out.

When it comes to the short-term future of Iraq, it’s all about expectations.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ken.) has one idea in mind…

SCHIEFFER: Well, you said the other day — and I’m going to use your words here — the handwriting is on the wall, that we are going in a different direction in the fall, and I expect the president to lead it. What did you mean by that, Senator?

MCCONNELL: Well, by that, I mean the surge is going to come to an end, obviously. It’s now — the buildup in troops is now complete. It will obviously go on over the summer. I think everybody anticipates that there’s going to be a new strategy in the fall. I don’t think we’ll have the same level of troops, in all likelihood, that we have now. The Iraqis will have to step up, not only on the political side, but on the military side, to a greater extent. We’re not there forever. I think they understand that. And the time to properly evaluate that, it strikes me, is in September.

…and Gen. David Petraeus has another.

Today on Fox News Sunday…Petraeus admitted that he didn’t expect the “surge” to be done by September, the date set for Petraeus’ supposedly make-it or break-it report to Congress. Asked by host Chris Wallace whether he believed “the job would be done by the surge by September,” Petraeus responded, “I do not, no.” Watch it:

Asked in a follow up question if that meant “enhanced troop levels would continue for some months after that and into 2008,” Petraeus refused to answer. “Again, premature right now,” said Petraeus. “A number of options out there. And I’m not about to announce what we might do here today, I’m afraid.”

Petraeus then went on to endorse the “Korea model” for Iraq, which envisions keeping troops in the country for decades. “[T]ypically, I think historically, counterinsurgency operations have gone at least nine or ten years,” said Petraeus. “I think in general that that’s probably a fairly realistic assessment,” Petraeus said of the Korea comparison.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has one set of expectations…

Actually, we completely reject the word “pressure.” We always tell them that there are two things you should avoid: That word [pressure], because the Iraqi government is a sovereign government, and giving timetables, because timetables are harmful for them and for us. When the U.S. defense secretary said, “We want to stay for 50 years in Iraq,” this had unpleasant consequences because this issue is the Iraqi government’s business.

…and Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) has another.

Smith’s loneliness may be assuaged in September, when Petraeus reports on the effects of the troop surge. “There is,” Smith says, “a high expectation that we” — Republican senators — “will be able to vote for something different in September.” And: “I can,” he says, “think of a dozen Republican senators who will be with me in September.”

What’s that Green Day song? Wake me up when September ends.

Jonathan Alter believes Dems are struggling in the political debate over war policy, in part because they’re not nearly as good as Republicans at coming up with bumper-sticker slogans.

Iraq is President Bush’s war, but the Democrats are quickly getting tagged with some blame for it. One of the reasons Congress is in such bad odor — less popular even than Bush in recent polls — is that Democrats look feckless on how to proceed in Iraq, and not just because they lack the votes to cut off funding. Are they neo-isolationists, determined to exit the region as soon as possible? Democrats like Pennsylvania freshman Rep. Patrick Murphy, who saw ground action as an Army captain, insist not. They want to get out of Iraq and get tough on Al Qaeda at the same time. But the idea isn’t getting through.

Last week’s attack on what remained of the Golden Mosque in Samarra — one of the most revered shrines of Iraq’s Shiites — was apparently another sign that the organization known as Al Qaeda in Iraq remains a serious threat. The bombing (along with the violence in Gaza) was also a reminder that Democrats could still be in trouble on national security in 2008.

Politically, the “war on terror” continues to be a useful GOP bumper sticker, whatever John Edwards’s objections. Instead of bemoaning this, Democrats need their own bumper sticker — some way of framing their position that commits firmly to withdrawal from Iraq, but doesn’t make them look like surrender monkeys. Without it, they have no coherent policy.

To help Dems along, Alter suggests “strategic redeployment” isn’t muscular enough when it comes to sloganeering, and recommends “pull and strike” — the U.S. policy would “pull” American troops from the streets of Baghdad, but “strike” at terrorist targets in the region.

I suppose that’s as good a catchphrase as any, but I think Alter’s broader argument is off-base. He argues that Democrats have the right policy, but it’s not “getting through” to the rest of the country. I disagree — they have the right policy, it’s getting through just fine, but Dems are coming up short executing their own strategy.

Indeed, Alter suggests what’s standing between Democrats and broader acceptance of their policy prescription is “some way of framing their position that commits firmly to withdrawal from Iraq, but doesn’t make them look like surrender monkeys.” Alter’s heart is in the right place, but he’s missing a key point here — the public has already accepted the Democratic war policy. The problem isn’t in framing; Dems’ poll numbers started to sag only after they gave in and gave the Bush White House the war funding bill the president demanded. The sales pitch was irrelevant.

I don’t mean to pick on Alter; he seems to be right when it comes to the need for a dramatic change in policy. But I think he’s fallen into the same belief that tends to dominate the DC conventional wisdom — that the Dems have fallen short in convincing Americans that it’s time to withdraw from Iraq. That’s just not so; Americans already want out and are waiting for Washington to catch up.