During an appearance on Meet the Press in July with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sen. James Webb (D-VA) referred to politicians’ visits to Iraq as “dog-and-pony shows.” In an email to its members today, MoveOn writes, “Congress was fooled before by the White House’s ‘dog and pony show’ — we need to make sure they’re not fooled again. That’s why we’re hosting our own ‘Dog and Pony Show’ outside the Capitol Building right before Petraeus takes the stage for his testimony. We want to show Congress and the cameras that the American people aren’t buying the White House spin.” More on the event:

Who: Iraq Vet, John Bruhns, Americans Against Escalation in Iraq, dogs, ponies and MoveOn members like you
What: Dog and Pony Show rally
Where: West Front Grassy Area of the U.S. Capitol between Constitution Ave. NW and Independence Ave. SW on 1st St. NW (click here for a map)
When: 10:30am-11:30am
RSVP: Click here

Yesterday, the New York Post published an editorial equating Osama bin Laden and his recent video tape with MoveOn.org:

If Osama bin Laden ever gets tired of waging global jihad, perhaps he should interview for a job with MoveOn.org.

He’d get one, judging from his latest videotape to the American people: The first in three years, it contains vast sections of rambling rhetoric indistinguishable from the latest “netroots” rant.

The Bush administration is increasingly touting the reduced violence in the Anbar province as evidence that the President’s escalation policies are working. Last week, President Bush made a surprise visit to the region and used it to argue that the troop buildup should not be cut short:

In Anbar you’re seeing firsthand the dramatic differences that can come when the Iraqis are more secure. … You see Sunnis who once fought side by side with al-Qaida against coalition troops now fighting side by side with coalition troops against al-Qaida.

But as the Washington Post outlines today, the escalation has nothing to do with Anbar’s success. The Sunnis in the region had developed a bottom-up plan to start fighting the al Qaeda insurgents in 2006, at least four months before Bush announced his escalation:

More striking was the emerging shift in Anbar; al-Qaeda and Sunni insurgents had grown so dominant in the western province that military intelligence had all but given up on the area months earlier. Bush benefited from good timing. As he introduced his new strategy, Marine commanders had already made common cause with local Sunni tribal leaders who had broken with the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq, also called AQI. [...]

The sheik who forged the alliance with the Americans, Abdul Sattar Buzaigh al-Rishawi, traced the decision to fight al-Qaeda to Sept. 14, 2006, long before the new Bush strategy, but the president’s plan dispatched another 4,000 U.S. troops to Anbar to exploit the situation. As security improved, the White House eagerly took credit.

Even Gen. Petraeus has acknowledged that Anbar “was the result, not of military actions, certainly, alone. It was the result of, really, a political shift where the population led by the sheiks of major tribes decided to reject al Qaeda and its Taliban-like ideology, and the extremist behavior that they have come to associate with it.” Similarly, Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently admitted that the successes in Anbar were initiated by Iraqis, not U.S. troops.

Last week, CNN correspondent Michael Ware also noted that the Sunni insurgency in Anbar offered to work with U.S. troops — but not the Iraqi government — to fight al Qaeda in 2003, but the United States rejected the offer. Only “after four years of bloodshed” was the United States “finally ready to accept those terms.”

In his new biography of President Bush, GQ correspondent Robert Draper writes that Bush was never told bad news about Iraq. “The commanders and the troops never told him what was going wrong,” wrote Draper. “Just as the generals on the ground never once told the President during their regular video conferences, ‘Sir, we need more troops.’

On NBC’s The Chris Matthews Show this morning, Draper further elaborated on his report Bush never heard “what was going wrong” about Iraq. “He didn’t create the conditions where the truth could come out,” Draper explained, because he didn’t use “an honest line of questioning” with the generals:

DRAPER: Well, he didn’t create conditions where the truth could come out. He would have these secure video teleconferences with the generals, and he would ask a series of questions, but it wasn’t really an honest line of questioning. He would say “can we win, are we winning, what happens if we lose, do you have everything you need?” Military commanders aren’t loathe to say, very easily at least, “we really need a lot of help here Mr. President,” and when he creates a conversation like that, it’s not likely to come out.

Watch it: