As part of its coverage of Sen. Larry Craig’s (R-ID) arrest for “lewd conduct” in an airport bathroom, the tabloid-y New York Post posted a sidebar questionnaire on its website today asking “are you a gay Senator?” The questions are filled with gay stereotypes like “do you sing showtunes in the car between political events?” and “did you quit the ‘Singing Senators’ because the bow ties didn’t match the seersucker suits?”

As New York magazine’s Daily Intelligencer blog points out, the Post has a history of homophobia, using “archaic adjectives like ‘swishy’ and ‘limp-wristed’ to describe gay subjects” and featuring a cartoonist who draws homosexual characters “with exaggerated lips and eyelashes, and one leg kicked flamboyantly upward.”

Recently, the media revealed — and the White House confirmed — that Gen. David Petraeus’s much-anticipated September report on Iraq will “actually be written by the White House.” But this week, Petraeus assured lawmakers that he won’t let the White House interfere with his analysis:

Gen. David Petraeus, who is scheduled to brief Congress in two weeks on the progress in Iraq, assured lawmakers this week that the administration is not involved in the writing of his report, according to a lawmaker who has recently returned from the region.

Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.), told reporters Thursday that Petraeus said he and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker had briefed the administration on the situation in Iraq, but added that “as far as [Petraeus] is concerned … he is writing his recommendations of that report and testimony.”

Blogging will be light.

Earlier this month, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) asked “Justice Department’s Inspector General (IG) to investigate potentially false or misleading testimony given by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales during his appearances before various congressional committees.” Despite Gonzales’ resignation, Fine told Leahy today that his office will still assess Gonzales’ contradictory claims. Leahy released the following statement:

I am pleased that Department of Justice Inspector General Glenn Fine will look into my concerns about potentially false, misleading or inappropriate testimony by the Attorney General. I look forward to the Inspector General’s findings on the unprecedented firings of nine United States Attorneys, the improper political hiring of career officials within the Justice Department, the misuse of National Security Letters, and the efforts to bypass the Department’s finding that a warrantless surveillance program was without legal basis.

These actions have eroded the public’s trust and undermined morale within our justice system, from the top ranks to the cop on the beat. The current Attorney General is leaving, but these questions remain. It is appropriate that the Inspector General will examine whether the Attorney General was honest with this and other Congressional committees about these crucial issues. His investigations can help restore independence and accountability, which have been sorely lacking at the Justice Department.

Read Fine’s letter here.

Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that President Bush will soon request an additional $50 billion from Congress for the war in Iraq. The request, which is expected to be made after Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker testify to Congress about Iraq, “appears to reflect the view in the administration” that Bush’s escalation strategy “will last into the spring of 2008 and will not be shortened by Congress.”

On Fox News’ Special Report last night, host Brit Hume revealed that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was unaware of the White House’s plans. “A Pentagon spokesman said Defense Secretary Gates saw the published report this morning and said, quote, ‘this is news to me,’” reported Hume. Watch it:

Gates’ admission of being out of the loop on the funding request coincides with a report by McClatchy that military brass are trying to “distance themselves” from the President on Iraq strategy:

The Pentagon said Wednesday that it won’t make a single, unified recommendation to President Bush during next month’s strategy assessment, but instead will allow top commanders to make individual presentations. [...]

Military analysts called the move unusual for an institution that ordinarily does not air its differences in public, especially while its troops are deployed in combat.

“The professional military guys are going to the non-professional military guys and saying ‘Resolve this,’” said Jeffrey White, a military analyst for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “That’s what it sounds like.”

White said it suggests that the military commanders want to be able to distance themselves from Iraq strategy by making it clear that whatever course is followed is the president’s decision, not what commanders agreed on.

The White House’s marginalization of the Pentagon comes on the heels of a report that Gen. Peter Pace, the outgoing Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff, will recommend reducing “the U.S. force in Iraq next year by almost half.” Gates’ position on continuing the escalation “is not known, but he was a member of the Iraq Study Group, which advocated a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.”

Additionally, the marginalization of the Pentagon on Iraq by the administration is not a new development. In December, when the White House was first discussing an escalation, the Joint Chiefs of Staff were in “unanimous disagreement” with the administration, arguing that “any short-term mission” would create “bigger problems when it ends.”

The Bush administration is already in full spin mode regarding the “strikingly harsh” GAO report on Iraq. An individual leaked the GAO report to the Washington Post because the source feared that the administration would try to “water down” its conclusions. As predicted, the Pentagon has begun the watering-down campaign:

Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said that after reviewing a draft of the Government Accountability Office report — which has not yet been made public — policy officials “made some factual corrections” and “offered some suggestions on a few of the actual grades” assigned by the GAO. … “We have provided the GAO with information which we believe will lead them to conclude that a few of the benchmark grades should be upgraded from ‘not met’ to ‘met,’” Morrell said.

U.S. District Judge Larry Alan Burns has decided to unseal the transcripts of a secret court hearing for New York businessman Thomas Kontogiannis, an admitted co-conspirator of former congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham. Kontogiannis paid Cunningham nearly $1 million in bribes, and admitted to bribery charges in Feb. 2007. The Kontogiannis “have been at the center of a legal tug of war for months, with government prosecutors fighting to keep them under wraps.”