But the biggest thing to watch for in this agreement is -- written or unwritten -- "security guarantees" for the Maliki government itself. To put it another way, is Bush (and the U.S. military) going to use a variation of the "Musharraf policy" with Maliki? [This name comes from the fact that Bush hasn't really had a "Pakistan policy," instead -- since 9/11 -- he's had a "Musharraf policy."] Will we give similar unquestioning support to Maliki's government, no matter what it decides to do?

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Call him a scapegoat, lightning rod, whipping boy, or even sacrificial lamb (choose your own metaphor, in other words), but no matter who the nominee is, will he give sufficient cover so this eventual nominee can unite Democratic voters to produce a win in November?

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I rarely dip into the realm of fairy tales to describe politics, but sometimes trying to figure out George Bush's logic on Iraq demands it. And so today we will try to explain the current military logic on troop levels using Goldilocks' terms: "too few," "too many," or "just right."

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Last Wednesday I wrote an article called "Questions For Petraeus," which I thought would be adequate to begin discussion of how to approach the upcoming congressional testimony by General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker -- in particular, what Democrats on the committees should be asking them. But events in Iraq have been moving quickly, so I offer this column as an addendum to the earlier one. Because after what happened in the past few days, more questions need to be asked.

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Since the campaigns of both Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama have seemingly taken my advice earlier this week, and are both concentrating on attacking Senator John McCain rather than each other, we have the luxury of getting away from the campaign trail this week and focusing on a few other things -- the biggest of which is the upcoming testimony before Congress by General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker on the situation in Iraq. More on that in a moment.

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Of course, Petraeus and Crocker will be attempting to put a big smiley face on Iraq once again, and they must be kicking themselves for being blindsided by Maliki's recent Basra fiasco. If only Maliki had waited two or three weeks, they could have testified that everything was hunky-dory in Iraq, and then gotten out of Washington unscathed.

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I have to say, this one was right down my alley. [Ahem. OK, I'll stop with the bowling puns, I promise.]

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That is the "prize" they're both fighting for, remember -- the chance to face off against McCain in the general election. So why not compete with each other on who is the best candidate to do so? And why shouldn't this competition show each candidate's strategy for doing so now, instead of later?

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We haven't done a contest here in a while, so I'm going to open the betting window today on the outcome of the Democratic race. To play, just post a comment with the date and the outcome you predict will happen.

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There is, of course, a much easier way to fix the problem once and for all -- one which would probably sound pretty fair to average Americans. That would be to treat all income -- including capital gains -- exactly the same. Any money you make would be income, and it would all be treated the same on your income taxes. This makes all kinds of sense, unless (of course) you are extremely wealthy, in which case you would see it as a giant tax hike.

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