Some excellent advice from Tom Engelhardt and Ira Chernus for Democratic members of Congress when Bush's politicized military crony, General Petraeus comes calling this week.

The realities from Engelhardt:

1. The situation in Iraq is getting worse.
2. The Bush administration has no learning curve.
3. The "success" of the surge was always an expensive illusion for which payment will someday come due.
4. A second hidden surge, not likely to be discussed in the hearings this week, is now under way.
5. A reasonably undertaken but speedy total withdrawal from Iraq is the only way out of this morass.

The realities from Chernus about how Democrats can take charge of the hearings and show that Republicans like John McCain's promotion and support of Bush's failed Iraq policies are disastrously wrong.

"...a debate focused on military success or failure is a trap, with Petraeus’s testimony as the bait. After all, no debate in Congress will really be about the level of violence in Iraq. 'Has the surge worked?' is just a symbolic way of asking: 'Would you rather believe that America is a winner or a loser?'

"So the Democrats would be smart to refuse the bait and insist that this is not an old-fashioned World War II- style conflict, where force can produce a clear-cut winner. Then they could refocus the debate on two crucial truths: We have no right to be in Iraq; the sooner we get out, the sooner we can begin to heal the terrible damage the war has done to us here at home.

"Yes, the Democrats might win by making military success or failure in Iraq the central issue of the coming election — if Iraqi violence continues to rise. But that violence would have to go on rising until Election Day (or the McCain-boosting “success” image would once again kick in). It’s a big gamble that depends on factors utterly beyond their control and it threatens to leave them trapped in a narrow corner.

"The Democrats, however, can turn General Entrap-Us into General Entrapped by refusing to treat the issue of military success or failure as the central question of the moment. The fact is: the competing sides in Iraq have always been ill-defined and constantly shifting.

"We are uninvited intruders in Iraq. We invaded the country on false pretenses. It’s long past time for us to admit that truth and leave. The longer we stay, the longer we tell the world that invasion and occupation are okay with us, and the longer we leave America’s moral reputation around the world in tatters.

"If Democrats take that approach, they will shift the terms of the debate. Then they can speak truths about the war that the American people might be prepared to understand. They can pose hard questions — and not ones of military strategy either — that the administration simply cannot answer. That would push war supporters deeper into their self-made trap whose tripwire is the irrelevance of their quest for military success."

Here is what Democrats should not do according to Chernus: "no arguments about "the most “effective” ways to protect what are always termed “American interests” around the world. Some dare call it empire, though in any presidential campaign that word will be politely avoided."

As he advises, "It’s time to insist that war should be seen not through the lens of myth and symbol, but as the brutal, self-defeating reality it is."

Let's see if the Democrats take the advice or waste time with saccahrine thanking and praising Petraeus while failing to enlighten the American public with probing and incisive questions for Bush's loyal to King George, political, spinning the indefensible general.