Lieberman: Iraq War has the next relationship to the next war as the Spanish Civil War had to World War II.

Update: We’ve captured the moment here. Beware! Excessive historical analogizing may cause dizziness.

TPM Reader JM on Applebaum … “It would be a bit easier to take Applebaum seriously if she could make a good case as to why we should have launched a war of liberation to free the Soviet Union from Stalin. Obviously, since no one with a hint of sanity seriously argued for taking out Stalin at the time, there were many American policy makers who understood how evil he was yet did not think it was worth a pre-emptive war to remove him from power. Yet Applebaum, like most neocons, implies that the only people who possibly could have understood Saddam’s evil are those who supported obliterating his regime by force. In their fantasy world, there are two types of foreign rulers – those who are stable and good, and those whom we must destroy. Perhaps history holds no lessons for them except that we’ve had too few wars, too few chances to demonstrate our moral rectitude.”

We’ve just obtained an advance copy of the soon-to-be-released letter to President Bush from Dem leaders coming out strongly against escalation in Iraq.

Key quote: “It is time to bring the war to a close.”

Late Update: CNN now says the letter is coming soon as ‘breaking news’. But you can read it here now.

Another winger tall-tale bites dust…

Here’s some new proof that the so-called “lonely Kerry” photo story, which allegedly proved that he was “snubbed” by the troops in Iraq, is completely bogus.

This is a key quote out of Sen. McCain’s remarks this afternoon at AEI.

Contrary to popular notions that U.S. troops are getting “caught in the cross-fire” between Sunni and Shia fighters, and are therefore ineffective in ceasing the smoldering civil war, the track record is that when U.S. troops stopping [sic] sectarian violence is excellent; where American soldiers have been deployed to areas in turmoil, including Baghdad neighborhoods, the violence has ceased almost immediately.

Similary, the Marines in Anbar province report very positive effects in reducing the non-sectarian Al Qaeda based violence that is the predominant cause of instability there.

Is that true? My recollection is that there was an earlier surge or crackdown in Baghdad. Violence did abate at first but then it rose again. The thinking, if I recall, was that the insurgents just adapted to the new tactics and then the fighting escalated again.

I doubt there’s any real question that in a certain geographical area, with X number of soldiers and sufficiently permissive rules of engagement (two mammoth ‘ifs’) we could stop all the violence. The question is what X number is, whether we have X number of troops available, whether we’re willing to make the area into a free fire zone and whether the whole effort really makes an eventual political settlement more possible.

So what exactly is McCain referring to? And are they examples which have any real bearing on the question at hand?

Biden: “I have reached the tentative conclusion that a significant portion of this administration, maybe even including the vice president, believes Iraq is lost. They have no answer to deal with how badly they have screwed it up. I am not being facetious now. Therefore, the best thing to do is keep it from totally collapsing on your watch and hand it off to the next guy — literally, not figuratively.”

Huh. I didn’t see that coming. Gen. Casey is being kicked up stairs to become Army Chief of Staff, succeeding Rumsfeld’s man, Gen. Schoomaker, whom if memory serves Rummy had to bring out of retirement because he couldn’t find any other generals in active service who would go along with his plans.

Late Update: Okay, a friend who knows this stuff says Schoomaker was “not a Rummy toady by any stretch.” So I want to add that to the mix.

The Bush administration doesn’t want you to know who’s been visiting the White House. So they’ve made sure you never find out.

Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) turns the Golden Rule on its head: “What we really expect out of the Democrats is for them to treat us as they would like to have been treated.”

Given Boehner’s perma-tan, maybe we can call this the Bronzed Rule.

I would hate to let John Negroponte’s departure as Director of National Intelligence go by without reminiscing about the job’s long hours and positively dreary surroundings, as recounted last March by Jeff Stein at CQ:

On many a workday lunchtime, the nominal boss of U.S. intelligence, John D. Negroponte, can be found at a private club in downtown Washington, getting a massage, taking a swim, and having lunch, followed by a good cigar and a perusal of the daily papers in the club’s library.

“He spends three hours there [every] Monday through Friday,” gripes a senior counterterrorism official, noting that the former ambassador has a security detail sitting outside all that time in chase cars. Others say they’ve seen the Director of National Intelligence at the University Club, a 100-year-old mansion-like redoubt of dark oak panels and high ceilings a few blocks from the White House, only “several” times a week.

. . .

But there seems to be a new, relaxed John Negroponte. And some close observers think they know why.

He’s figured out the job. Which is to say, he really doesn’t have much control over the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies.

So why not hang at the University Club?

Negroponte spokesman Carl Kroft takes serious issue with that portrayal.

“He’s the hardest working person in U.S. intelligence,” Kroft said. “He’s hard at work from the early hours of the morning to late every night. The job never ends.”

Negroponte’s new digs in Foggy Bottom will be much closer to the University Club than were DNI’s temporary offices out at Bolling Air Force Base.