The circus has already begun on the left and in the MSM over the “much anticipated report from General Patraeus and Ambassador Crocker”. The latest silliness is now where the report will be read.

“Senior congressional aides said yesterday that the White House has proposed limiting the much-anticipated appearance on Capitol Hill next month of Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker to a private congressional briefing, suggesting instead that the Bush administration’s progress report on the Iraq war should be delivered to Congress by the secretaries of state and defense.

White House officials did not deny making the proposal in informal talks with Congress, but they said yesterday that they will not shield the commanding general in Iraq and the senior U.S. diplomat there from public congressional testimony required by the war-funding legislation President Bush signed in May. “The administration plans to follow the requirements of the legislation,” National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said in response to questions yesterday.

The skirmishing is an indication of the rising anxiety on all sides in the remaining few weeks before the presentation of what is widely considered a make-or-break assessment of Bush’s war strategy, and one that will come amid rising calls for a drawdown of U.S. forces from Iraq.

With the report due by Sept. 15, officials at the White House, in Congress and in Baghdad said that no decisions have been made on where, when or how Petraeus and Crocker will appear before Congress. Lawmakers from both parties are growing worried that the report — far from clarifying the United States’ future in Iraq — will only harden the political battle lines around the war.

White House officials suggested to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee last week that Petraeus and Crocker would brief lawmakers in a closed session before the release of the report, congressional aides said. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates would provide the only public testimony.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) told the White House that Bush’s presentation plan was unacceptable. An aide to Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) said that “we are in talks with the administration and . . . Senator Levin wants an open hearing” with Petraeus.

Those positions only hardened yesterday with reports that the document would not be written by the Army general but instead would come from the White House, with input from Petraeus, Crocker and other administration officials.

“Americans deserve an even-handed assessment of conditions in Iraq. Sadly, we will only receive a snapshot from the same people who told us the mission was accomplished and the insurgency was in its last throes,” warned House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.).”

Not a chance that any “Even-handedness” will come from the Democrats. It doesn’t matter what Patraeus or Crocker say they will only pick and choose what confirms they’re cut and run beliefs.

Don’t confuse them with the facts that the surge is working and progress has been made - they’re minds are made up. After all the Surrender Twins of Reid and Pelosi has thus decreed that no matter what the good General says, the war is lost - period.

So why even pretend to give any credence to a body of politicians think whose sole purpose is to show America defeated, George Bush a liar, and General Patraeus his lacky?

Absolutely none.

UPDATE: Missed this, obviously the American people trust Patraeus much more than they do congressional democrats.