Bush Calls in the Old Guard

As the repercussions of Jack Abramoff's plea deal begin to ricochet around Washington (Hastert's already donating his Abramoff-funds to charity, Gingrich of all people has now come out and said the House caucus needs new leadership, etc.), President Bush is going to do his best to ignore the matter - or at least talk about other things.

In what I find quite an interesting move, Bush has invited all living former secretaries of state and defense to a summit of sorts at the White House on Thursday. The ex-officials will reportedly be briefed by Gen. George Casey, the current US commander on the ground in Iraq, as well as ambassador Zalmay Khalilzhad. And, as Scott McClellan said yesterday, "There will be opportunity for them to ask questions and have a discussion."

I would like to hope this will be a serious meeting of the minds about Iraq policy and where it goes from here. I rather suspect it will be little more than a PowerPoint briefing and some perfunctory q & a. The men and women sitting in that room could have much to offer this president and his current advisers, but this administration has shown little willingness over the past five years to pay much attention to outside thoughts. So I guess we'll see how it goes. If it's anything more than tea, cookies and Casey's talking points, you can all color me surprised.