WASHINGTON — Seems like old times, a flashback to the August recess of 2002 when Bush-Cheney officials were cooking up the Iraq War:

Journalists headed for a war zone are now being looked over by a Pentagon corporate consultant for their attitudes toward the U. S. military establishment’s quest for empire. And Admiral Mike Mullen, in full Navy regalia as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was selling the Afghanistan build-up to an American Legion Convention.

Then-Vice President Dick Cheney was serving up blood-curdling talk about Iraq this time seven years ago. Mullen’s new war talk feeds the flag-waving, gun-brandishing right. For the left fringe, Attorney General Eric Holder signaled there might be yeasty ideological show trials of Central Intelligence Agency interrogators who became too excited in their attempts to prevent a repetition of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center in Manhattan.

Was there an election last year? Who was left in charge? Or, is everybody in charge?

There’s Defense Secretary Robert Gates, a Bush holdover. Gates didn’t bother purging the Rendon Group, which Stars & Stripes says helped build the push for war with Iraq. The International Federation of Journalists complained last week that reporters seeking to travel with the military in Afghanistan are first screened by Rendon to determine whether they will portray U. S. forces in a positive light.

Holder, who is Obama’s man, reversed his first plan to shelve an investigation into rough tactics used on al-Qaida suspects thought to be implicated in 9/11 and who might know of future attacks. Holder now has named a special prosecutor to make a preliminary finding on whether CIA — and perhaps Bush-Cheney officials — committed crimes in the questioning.

A contradiction here: On one hand the Obama administration seeks to stop reporters from telling the public how borrowed billions are spent on a Obama’s war in Afghanistan. On the other, Obama is building the stage for public disclosure of how our most secret personnel helped stop a repetition of 9/11, oblivious to the impact on intelligence agents’ morale.

The worst of these tactics stopped years ago on orders of the Bush White House. Another look at the horror and carnage yielded at the World Trade Center might help some understand the frenzy that drove our agents and political leaders who were holding the bag at the time. I can forward an Internet link to a ghastly picture show to anyone desiring.

Holder’s caper presses another hot button with conservatives. And thereby more trouble for five Democrats in marginal districts facing mid-term elections next year, even in New York State where there isn’t a working Republican Party. The recess has accomplished little for the House Democrats’ health care bill.

Rep. Eric Massa, D-Corning, now says he won’t vote for it because it lacks a strong public option, is not deficit-neutral and mainly helps the insurance and drug businesses.

Rep. Michael Arcuri, D-Utica, says he won’t vote for the bill in its present form.

Rep. Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo, works a district that is nominally marginal. But in 2008 he got 74.4 percent of the vote, and will again mount a campaign chest of $1 million plus. He backs the big bill.

However, problems for many House Democrats are mounting, with Catholic bishops voicing concerns that Medicare cuts could result in “rationing” and that the leadership bill provides indirect public financing for abortions, although President Obama says it won’t.

The party holds a massive 78- seat House majority. The degree to which Democrats’ mid-term losses are kept to a minimum depends on whether Obama can produce credible health reform, whether Obama can explain why we’re investing billions we don’t have in a new war, and why he wants to humiliate brave intelligence agents who were just doing their job.