The farce continues on the President's Iraq decisionmaking

The White House is once again pressing the idea that Bush is "listening" to all opinions on Iraq policy, "weighing all advice" before deciding on a path forward.

Today's pharisaism is a Bush visit to the Pentagon where he will likely hear Gens. Pace, Casey, SecDef Gates, and Adm. Fallon all recommend an end to "the surge."

The only apparent counter recommendation comes from Petraeus himself who will reportedly say that he, himself is brilliant, and that his brilliant plan should be allowed to continue. (Reuters: Petraeus says Iraq "surge" working.)

This is the exact same Kabuki we went through from November to January around the ISG report. The whole thing is a farce.

Bush in recent public statements has suggested he intends to stick to his Iraq strategy for now.

The one really funny note of it all is this.

Maj. Gen. Richard Sherlock, director of operational planning for the Joint Chiefs, told reporters that Friday's meeting in a secure conference room known as "the tank" would be the Joint Chiefs' opportunity to "provide the president with their unvarnished recommendations and their assessments of current operations" — in particular the situation in Iraq.

If you don't know, "the tank" is one of those supercontrolled rooms with all of the latest technological efforts to eliminate any possibilities of electronic bugging and snooping.

Who do they expect to be listening in on that room? The Islamic Army of Iraq? Mahdi?

It just seems an extreme measure to protect the "unvarnished" opinions of the Joint Chiefs.

(Besides, it's into military politics now. It'll all leak pretty soon.)