The Washington Post, working hand-in-glove with Democrats in Congress, has gotten out front in preparing the domestic battlefield for September’s fight over the war in Iraq. The Post led today’s paper with an account of a leaked draft report from the Congressionally-controlled Government Accountability Office (the GAO’s final report is due next Tuesday). The headline: “Report Finds Little Progress on Iraq Goals; GAO Draft at Odds with White House.” Here’s the good news: If this is the best war opponents have to offer, the administration is in amazingly good shape going into September.

The Post reporters--both strongly anti-Iraq war--characterize the GAO judgments as “strikingly negative.” But there’s nothing striking about them. The Democratic Congress ensured that the report would deliver negative “grades” for the Iraqi government by asking the GAO to evaluate whether or not the benchmarks have been met now--just two months after the major combat operations of the surge began.  Full Item