In yesterday's White House press briefing, spokesman Ron Ziegler--umm, I mean, Scott McClellan--made a special point of saying that the United States isn't talking to the bad guys in Iraq. Like Bush in December, he made a curious distinction among the insurgents, separating them into terrorists, Saddamists, and rejectionists. Only the latter, said McClellan, are worth talking to. But he fails ot make the case for not talking to the Baathists, whether they are "Saddamists" or not. As I have argued repeatedly, talking to the resistance without including the Baath means endless war--since, getting a few "rejectionist" Sunnis or Sunni religious leaders to join the government will not end the insurgency.

Here's McClellan:

Q What can you tell us about contacts that have been made with Iraqi insurgency groups?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I would point out that we have talked about this before. We're not talking with Zarqawi or other terrorists; we're not talking with Saddam loyalists, those who worked for him and want to return back to the previous regime.

But part of our strategy, a critical element of our strategy, is to broaden participation in the political process. We have been reaching out to the rejectionists. As the President outlined last month, there are really three categories for defining the enemy. And pointing out to the rejectionists that the way forward is the political process. That's the way to advance political interest -- not through violence. And you can't have it both ways. You have to make a choice.

And we see more and more that the Iraqi people are choosing freedom and democracy. We have more Sunnis participating in the political process in much larger numbers than they did.

I think it's important to take stock of where we are. Look at where Iraq was a year ago and look at where it is today. There has been tremendous progress, but there are difficulties and challenges


Among the "difficulties and challenges" must be the fact that Ambassador Khalilzad almost got blown up yesterday when two suicide bombers actually got inside the Iraqi interior ministry and exploded themselves, killing 29 people, while Khalilzad was there. The Interior Ministry building must be one of the hardest of hard targets in Iraq--so, to get inside is quite a feat. Some "last throes."