YET ANOTHER DELAY...

YET ANOTHER DELAY IN PROBING BUSH'S PREWAR DECEPTIONS. Can this be true? From The Hill:

Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), who chairs the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said he wants to divide his panel�s inquiry into the Bush administration�s handling of Iraq-related intelligence into two parts, a move that would push off its most politically controversial elements to a later time....An aide to Sen. Jay Rockefeller (W.Va.), the panel�s ranking Democrat, said that Democrats are aware Roberts is mulling a decision on whether to divide the inquiry and that Rockefeller is unlikely to oppose such a move if Roberts goes through with it. But one Democrat who has followed the probe said separating the controversial elements would relieve pressure on Roberts to complete the entire inquiry soon...Roberts would like to wrap up work quickly on three relatively less controversial topics of the second phase of the inquiry...Left unfinished would be a report on whether public statements and testimony about Iraq by senior U.S. government officials were substantiated by available intelligence information. (Emphasis added.)

Someone correct me if I'm wrong. It seems that Roberts -- who successfully delayed the probe of whether the White House manipulated intel in the runup to the Iraq war before the 2004 election -- is on the verge of delaying, yet again, a look at this most important and most politically controversial aspect of this whole story. And at a time when Bush's poll numbers are at rock bottom, the situation in Iraq is more disastrous than ever, and the midterm elections approaching, Rockefeller appears poised to...let him get away with it. From the perspective of partisan politics, this makes exactly zero sense. But put aside politics for a moment. The American people deserve to know what really happened in the runup to the war. But even Democrats apparently lack the spine to demand a real investigation. Why would this be? Is there anything we can do to get Rockefeller -- not to mention other Dems -- to kick up a fuss about it?

--Greg Sargent