Here's your political system in a nutshell: the Republicans are stuck with people like Larry Craig, the Democrats are up to their eyeballs in the despicable antics of some of their own members of Congress, MoveOn.org and Code Pink. That really leaves little room for compliments.
However, let's give some hand claps to where they are due, Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, who went to Capitol Hill to provide their viewpoints of the current status of the war, under conditions that would have in normal times caused grievous embarrassment for the hosts.
Before the general gave his statement, House Armed Services Chairchild Tom Lantos basically told him he was a stooge of the White House and what he said was not worth listening to. If Petraeus had more guts, he should have stood and offered to leave so as not to waste anyone's time.
I'm sure I don't have to run through the rest of the idiocy, from the Code Pink demonstrations to the statements leading up to the day by senators Biden, Durbin and Schumer. But let's just say that the security albatross that's always been on the neck of the Democrats just got much, much bigger.
The one thing I haven't heard in response to Schumer's blithering comment that gains in al Anbar province have been despite the surge, instead of because of the surge, is that all along we've been trying to get the Iraqis to take responsibility for their own security. Now that they have, this senator tells our military it was not because of them.
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I see no need to comment on the Petraeus report itself. There is no way to prove or disprove his figures or his conclusions. If you actually read his statement, you will see that he says conditions have improved but there is still a long way to go. Anecdotal reports from Iraq over the past few months bear this out. The surge has improved conditions in some places, not others, and the Iraqi government has taken its own sweet time in taking advantage of this opportunity.
It is what it is, the saying goes, and you can take it or leave it depending on your point of view. If the left was so comfortable in its position, then the weirdness of the last few days would not have been necessary.
Meanwhile, a poll by the New York Times says people trust the military's assessment of Iraq more than that of Congress or the White House.
After today, that's no surprise, and the numbers probably skyrocketed even more in the military's favor. Meanwhile, that distrust of our civilian institutions has been earned in spades, which is what this blog is all about. We need to make changes in 2008, desperately, and we need to begin making them in the primaries.
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As a reporter, I have some insight into how reader's views of a particular subject can be manipulated by how the story is written. Most of the time, it's very subtle comments in the background of a story, something which sets everything in context. Most stories of a continuing nature, like the war in Iraq, need a certain amount of set up in order to make the day's news make sense. That context is often where some manipulation occurs.
An example from this weekend from a news organization which apparently trotted out its C team so the other employees could watch football is perfect.
In a roundup of events in Iraq was an item about a car bombing in Sadr City that killed 15 Shiites. The reporter said it went against Bush administration claims of improved security in Baghdad. The trouble is that no one in a responsible position has ever claimed that the situation in Baghdad, particularly that slummy section of the capital city, has improved much at all. The claimed improvement is in Anbar and other outlying areas.
Petraeus' report did not differ from that assessment.
