General David Petraeus' testimony Tuesday and Wednesday of this week will be another chapter in U.S. foreign policy's long-running "is the surge working?" debate. The General and Ambassador Ryan Crocker will offer up some good news counterpoints to the not-so-good news out of Basra from the last weekend of March. But in the ways that matter, there's no need to debate in the present tense -- the surge isn't working, it's already worked, and the question is what the Democrats plan to do about it.

To evaluate the surge, you have to consider its goals. Peter Feaver, who spent years working on the National Security Council on Iraq issues as a specialist on domestic public opinion, has explained in Commentary the administration's desire "to develop and implement a workable strategy that could be handed over to Bush's successor." Or as Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden less charitably put it there's no plan at all other than "to muddle through and hand the problem off to his successor."

For 60 years, Americans have pushed steadily into the suburbs, transforming the landscape and (until recently) leaving cities behind. But today the pendulum is swinging back toward urban living, and there are many reasons to believe this swing will continue. As it does, many low-density suburbs and McMansion subdivisions, including some that are lovely and affluent today, may become what inner cities became in the 1960s and ’70s -- slums characterized by poverty, crime, and decay.

If gasoline and heating costs continue to rise, conventional suburban living may not be much of a bargain in the future. And as more Americans, particularly affluent Americans, move into urban communities, families may find that some of the suburbs’ other big advantages -- better schools and safer communities -- have eroded. Schooling and safety are likely to improve in urban areas, as those areas continue to gentrify; they may worsen in many suburbs if the tax base -- often highly dependent on house values and new development -- deteriorates. Many of the fringe counties in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, for instance, are projecting big budget deficits in 2008. Only Washington itself is expecting a large surplus. Fifteen years ago, this budget situation was reversed. 

Business groups argue that paid leave would encourage significantly more workers to take time off and that replacing them would be too burdensome for small companies. However, a legislative study in California suggests these fears may be unfounded. During the first year of the program, which took effect in 2004, only about 1 percent of the eligible employees filed for benefits — a number that has not increased significantly since.

A survey by the McGill Institute for Health and Social Policy reports that 169 countries offer mothers paid maternal leave and 66 offer new fathers paid leave. Thirty-nine nations grant paid leave to workers whose children are ill, and 23 offer it to employees to care for other family members.

It’s time for more states in America to follow suit. Better yet, Congress should make paid family leave national policy. Elected officials would then be in a better position to talk about the importance of the family without sounding hypocritical.

Warren Jeffs is the autocrat and reigning prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS), a polygamous community of about 10,000 that regards itself as the one true Mormon faith. It survives much to the embarrassment of mainstream Mormons, who gave up polygamy in 1890, and much to the horror of the state.

Jeffs is either deeply creepy or downright evil depending on how you label religious leaders who consider themselves the voice of God and marry multiple women, including 30 of their late father’s youngest widows. He is infamous, among other things, for kicking hundreds of teenage boys out of his community and matching hundreds of their sisters into plural marriages. For those hooked on “Big Love,” Jeffs makes Alby Grant look appealing.

No, polygamy is not on trial. But its history is interwoven with questions of consent. Opponents to plural marriage in the 19th century included women’s rights advocates who equated polygamy with slavery. No mature woman, they believed, would voluntarily enslave herself.