The Shroud of Turin worked for quite a long while ... maybe it will work for the Congressional Republcans too!

It may be a little too little and a little too late … but my brother Richard pointed out to me on the phone tonight that it just might be that a number of Republicans have found that elusive shroud beneath which they might wrap their three years of support for a war whose only purpose has been to reward the western oil companies, enrich the military contractors—both in Iraq and at home—and divert the American public’s attention from our “failure” to catch Osama bin Forgotten—an old Bush family friend, among other things.

The Shroud? It’s simply a bill introduced one month and one day ago in the US Senate (called S 1545) that would implement the 79 recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. The House of Representatives is putting together a similar bill. That Iraq Study Group was the high-level study group co-chaired by former Secretary of State James A. Baker, III and former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Lee H. Hamilton. The beauty of this approach is that it gives the Republicans in both the House and the Senate a chance to support a rational approach to the “Iraq problem” without it looking too much like they are disagreeing with their “boss,” so to speak, … in the months prior to having to campaign under the Republican banner.

Both Bloomberg's website and govtrack's website have posted excellent summaries of the bill and this possible Republican strategy.

The Shroud of Turin worked for eons, it seems; thus, just maybe ... this later cover (in the form of Congressional legislation) will help to draw down the terrible War in Iraq while allowing the Congressional Republicans to support the draw down with their right hand while the left applauds George W. Bush’s efforts to keep the Sunnis, Shia and Kurds from annihilating one another … at the cost of yet more American servicemen and women.

It would still likely drag on through the first quarter of 2008, but it is a start, at least.