What Crocker and Petraeus didn't say  —  WASHINGTON — The Bush administration's top two officials in Iraq answered questions from Congress for more than six hours on Monday, but their testimony may have been as important for what they didn't say as for what they did.

Bush policy to bequeath Iraq to successor  —  The president plans to end his term with a strong U.S. military in the country and leave the issue of exiting to his successor.  —  WASHINGTON — The talk in Washington on Monday was all about troop reductions, yet it also brought …

By Bush's Own Standard, Surge Has Failed  —  Before Gen. David Petraeus' report, and to give it a context of optimism, the president visited Iraq's Anbar province to underscore the success of the surge in making some hitherto anarchic areas less so.  More significant, however, was the fact that the president did not visit Baghdad.

MoveOn's money  —  You can see a full size PDF of today's MoveOn.org ad in today's New York Times by clicking on the accompanying image.  I've got to say that this is probably the most disgusting piece of political hackery since Grover Cleveland had to endure taunts of "Ma, Ma, where's my pa?

GOP's Thompson brings young campaign to S.C.  —  Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson introduced himself to the Palmetto State on Monday, and won over Sumter residents Marylou Smith and Nalva Malcom.  —  Smith, 64, and Malcom, 67, were two of about 400 people who waited under …