Last month we reported extensively on the purge of US Attorneys across the country and the fact that at the administration’s request Sen. Specter (R-PA) had inserted a provision into the USA Patriot Act that allowed the administration to appoint new US Attorneys without senate approval.

This morning at a senate hearing on the US Attorney purge, Sen. Specter responded to the TPMmuckraker report, calling it “offensive.” But ‘offensive’ in the sense of also being true apparently. See the details and his explanation.

Late Update: Apparently Sen. Feinstein (D-CA) isn’t buying it. She repeated the ‘slipped in’ language when it was her turn to speak.

Phew! What a relief. That board of four ministers appointed to cure disgraced minister Ted Haggard of his homosexuality has been meeting pretty intensively. And it turns out Haggard is now “completely heterosexual.”

Rev. Tim Ralph of Larkspur, one of the four, said: ”He is completely heterosexual. That is something he discovered. It was the acting-out situations where things took place. It wasn’t a constant thing.”

As part of his continuing recovery and presumably in the spirit of forgiveness and caring, the group has also recommended he leave Colorado permanently and go into a different line of work. “It’s hard to heal in Colorado Springs right now,” said Rev. Mike Ware of Westminster, another member of the board, “It’s like an open wound. He needs to get somewhere he can get the wound healed.”

It gets better. Now Sen. Specter (R-PA) says his staff was responsible for inserting that US Attorney provision into the Patriot Act. He didn’t know anything about it until Sen. Feinstein (D-CA) told him about it.

Conservative writer: Rudy is “not conservative.” Rudy “will not win.”

Update: Family Research Council president Tony Perkins agrees.

Out of all the talking going on at the House oversight hearing this morning on the administration’s handling of Iraqi reconstruction, you’re not going to get a clearer summary of the problem than this.

I recommend reading Edward Luttwak’s oped today in the New York Times.

The argument is simple: The US shouldn’t completely withdraw from Iraq but it should ‘disengage’, by which he means that the US should stop trying to patrol the streets of Iraq, stop trying to quell violence and in so many words let the militias and contending parties fight it out. Eliminating those missions would allow most of the US troops to head home. The rest would relocated to sealed off camps on the periphery of the country or into Iraqi Kurdistan to be on hand if a neighboring country tries to invade or visibly interfere or if there’s some big concentration of jihadists we want to attack.

One can agree or disagree with whether or not we should ‘disengage’ or withdraw entirely. But Luttwak hits on the key point that our current national debate seems to ignore entirely: Namely, that Iraq is in a state of civil war which we our combat forces are not in a position to stop. We cannot stop it. But our presence is dragging it out, arguably making it even more deadly by making it more protracted.

Here is what Luttwak says about what would happen …

Politically, on the other hand, disengagement should actually reduce the violence. American power has been interposed between Arab Sunnis and Arab Shiites. That has relieved the Shiite majority of responsibility to such an extent that many, notably the leaders of the Mahdi Army, feel free to attack the American and British troops who are busy protecting their co-religionist civilians from Sunni insurgents. For many Arab Sunnis, on the other hand, the United States must be the enemy simply because it upholds the majority of the heretical Shiites.

Were the United States to disengage, both Arab Sunnis and Shiites would have to take responsibility for their own security (as the Kurds have doing been all along). Where these three groups are not naturally separated by geography, they would be forced to find ways to stabilize relations with each other. That would most likely involve violence as well as talks, and some forcing of civilians from their homes. But all this is happening already, and there is no saying which ethno-religious group would be most favored by a reduction of the United States footprint.

This is another example where fairly straightforward and I believe indisputable facts suggest pulling our troops out of the midst of this civil war, not pushing more of them into it. But denial is pushing our national policy in the opposite direction. I think that some key players in the White House realize this. And the surge is either a way to blame ‘failure’ on the Iraqis or pave a path into Iran. Others, perhaps the president, don’t even get this. I don’t know.

But getting our policy in order is also being stymied because the political opponents of the war aren’t willing to say that, yes, the policy has failed. Not ‘defeated’. To be ‘defeated’ you need to have some other party ‘defeat’ you. This is just a failure. But whichever it is, that bogey is being used by the White House to scare off the opposition. It’s a failure. There’s no recovering it. And the unspeakable reality — truly unspeakable, apparently — is that it’s not that bad. Horrible for the Iraqis. Horrible for the American dead. Terrible for American prestige, power and honor. All that. But not the end of the world. The future of our civilization isn’t at stake. And our physical safety isn’t at stake. We’ll go on. We are not the brave British standing behind Winston Churchill bucking us up with the confidence that “We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on beaches, landing grounds, in fields, in streets and on the hills. We shall never surrender …” Those aren’t the stakes here. Put it in those words and it’s almost comical. President Bush wants us to believe that it is because it serves his grandiosity and direct political interests to believe that, to believe that his political interests — where everything, history, legacy, etc. is on the line — are the same as ours as a country. They’re not.

Forget the Senate. If you want to see members of Congress pass judgment on Bush’s escalation, the House of Representatives may be the better place to look.

CIA’s Foggo gave special Iraq contract deals to Cunningham briber Brent Wilkes.

Grand unified scandal watch resumes …

Update: More here.

At Election Central I noticed a link to this article about how Barack Obama decided to quit smoking over the winter holidays. His wife wants him to quit for the obvious health reasons. Perhaps just as importantly smoking is just bad PR in this day and age. The article linked above in the Trib has some interesting discussion about the negative associations smoking has today. The article quotes a communications studies prof saying smoking “doesn’t go with the social, environmental message of reform he would like to project.”

So, an interesting set of questions about the culture and politics and Obama’s public image. But here’s another question. Aren’t people who are in the early stages of quitting a nicotine habit really irritable and on-edge? And isn’t running for president extremely stressful?

To preempt all the emails about the dangers of smoking and the importance of quitting, I’m certainly not disagreeing. It just made me think that presidential campaigns are usually times when people revert to bad habits (eating, smoking, drinking, etc.) not when they quit them.

Reuters …

The Federal Reserve sent record payouts of more than $4 billion in cash to Baghdad on giant pallets aboard military planes shortly before the United States gave control back to Iraqis, lawmakers said Tuesday.

The money, which had been held by the United States, came from Iraqi oil exports, surplus dollars from the U.N.-run oil-for-food program and frozen assets belonging to the ousted Saddam Hussein regime.

Bills weighing a total of 363 tons were loaded onto military aircraft in the largest cash shipments ever made by the Federal Reserve, said Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

“Who in their right mind would send 363 tons of cash into a war zone? But that’s exactly what our government did,” the California Democrat said during a hearing reviewing possible waste, fraud and abuse of funds in Iraq.

On December 12, 2003, $1.5 billion was shipped to Iraq, initially “the largest pay out of U.S. currency in Fed history,” according to an e-mail cited by committee members.

It was followed by more than $2.4 billion on June 22, 2004, and $1.6 billion three days later. The CPA turned over sovereignty on June 30.