Ehud Olmert hasn't gotten many breaks since he took over from an ailing Ariel Sharon as Israeli Prime Minister in early 2006. But he did get one this afternoon, when former Israeli High Court justice Eliyahu Winograd, who chaired the body investigating the conduct of the Second Lebanon War, issued his final report to a crowd of local reporters. The document's executive summary did say that the panel found "serious failures" in the Jewish state's political and military leaders during the war. But it was much more notable for what it didn't say: The report's authors declined to place blame on specific Israeli politicians. Before the report was issued, wags in the Israeli press had speculated that the commission could be critical of Olmert's handling of the last-ditch ground invasion in the final days of the war. Yet even on that count Winograd delivered a soft blow. The panel found that there was "no failure in the decision itself," and that political leaders "acted out of a strong and sincere perception of what they thought at the time was in Israel's interest."