Crooks and Liars is carrying a story that developed during the afternoon Wednesday. The official story is that 11 Republican members of Congress went to the White House and laid down the law to Mr Bu$h, insisting he must teleport from Bizarro World to Planet Earth.

There is a long video clip hosted by Keith Olbermann on his Countdown show and it’s well worth watching, two or three times, because there are some peculiarities about the entire story.

I wrote about Mr Cheney’s trip to the Mideast yesterday, and included a cut from the WaPo article, as well as a referring URL. At the time I wrote the story, as can be seen from the cut, there was no mention about Iraq. The story itself was rewritten later after news of Mr Cheney’s arrival in Baghdad was reported. Compare the cut with the referring link.

The arrival in Baghdad was of course secret. All US VIPs arrive secretly because of safety concerns. Mr Cheney of course wore a flak vest even as he debarked to be met by GEN Petraeus.

Mr Cheney supposedly told the Iraqis that “It’s game time” as Olberman quoted the usual unnamed “senior administration official” and that they need to get on the stick and get things rolling. It seems Bu$hCo (and Mr Cheney) is offended at the fact that the Iraqi legislature is taking a two month vacation while there is important business to take care of, namely the Iraq Hydrocarbon Law, better known as the “Oil Law,” which has been sitting in the legislature waiting for the Legislatures to sign off on it, and hand over the country’s oil to ExxonMobil, Shell, and Chevron.

The [Iraq Study] report makes visible to everyone the elephant in the room: that we are fighting, killing and dying in a war for oil. It states in plain language that the U.S. government should use every tool at its disposal to ensure that American oil interests and those of its corporations are met.

It's spelled out in Recommendation No. 63, which calls on the U.S. to "assist Iraqi leaders to reorganize the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise" and to "encourage investment in Iraq's oil sector by the international community and by international energy companies." This recommendation would turn Iraq's nationalized oil industry into a commercial entity that could be partly or fully privatized by foreign firms.

It’s confusing that the Bu$h MalAdministration is offended by the two month vacation. Don’t they know most of the Parliament lives out of the country? Aren’t they keeping an eye on their subjects?

The substance of the story at the White House, as breathlessly related by Tim Russert to Brian Williams, was that 11 Republicans visited Mr Bu$h in the White House and told him the people they represent are prepared for defeat in Iraq, and that he (Mr Bu$h) has no credibility left. According to Russert, reading from a prepared report, Mr Bu$h was told that “We need candor, we need honesty, Mr President.” Mr Bu$h reportedly replied that he didn’t want to pass this off to another President, adding he particularly didn’t want to a Democratic President. A cynical man would probably remember that Mr Bu$h’s life work has been to hand off his mistakes to someone else, and sticking a political opponent in the back is his favorite activity, but let’s continue with this report.

According to Mr Russert’s anonymous informant, some Republican told Mr Bu$h that word about Iraq cannot come from the White House. It can only come from GEN Petraeus. Well, that’s already been arranged, as I noted yesterday.

Key quote from Mr Russer’s report: “One Congressman said ‘How can our daughters and sons spill their blood while the Iraqi Parliament goes on vacation ?’ “

So there is the key narrative of this bit of Republican kabuki: America’s sons and daughters (not “our” since there are no children of Republican politicians fighting and dying in Iraq) are dying because those dirty, evil, nasty Iraqis don’t want to sign over their nation’s oil to foreign companies.

Mr Bu$h allegedly replied, “The Vice President is over there to tell them ‘Do not go on vacation’ “

A cynical man would also ask what right the Vice President of the US has to issue commands to legislators of a sovereign nation.

UPDATE: Matt Yglesias has a completely different view of the entire affair. I respect Matt's intellect, but with the Bu$h malAdministration now officially in bunker mode, it's even more important to remember that nothing happens accidentally, and in complete isolation from other events.