AND I MAY HAVE OVERLOOKED A BRIEF SAT-PHONE EXCHANGE WITH THE PENNYSAVER

A lot of you have already seen this by now:

Senior congressional aides said yesterday that the White House has proposed limiting the much-anticipated appearance on Capitol Hill next month of Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker to a private congressional briefing, suggesting instead that the Bush administration's progress report on the Iraq war should be delivered to Congress by the secretaries of state and defense....

So let me get this straight: Just since the beginning of June, Petraeus has given interviews to (I'm not sure this is a complete list) Fox News, CBS, ABC, ABC again, NPR, CNN, USA Today, The Christian Science Monitor, the BBC, The Times of London, Hugh Hewitt, Alan Colmes, and WBZ in Boston -- but the White House didn't want him to speak publicly before the Congress?

I guess the restrictions put on journalists when they're talking to Petraeus are so great that even the lily-livered Congress can be expected to ask tougher questions. Or maybe the White House thinks he's been a bit off-message, and there's concern that he might screw up his big moment all by himself by telling the truth.