Posted by
beltway girl on Wednesday, April 09, 2008 9:11:45 PM
The purpose of the surge has frequently been referenced in the Petraeus hearings. Let's also note the purpose of these hearings. The purpose is supposed to be to gather information to be used in shaping policy. But the key here is gathering information.
General David Petraeus has his hands full. He has to deal with the decapitation, jihad crowd over in Iraq; then, he gets to come home and become a glorified pawn in the ever-important and always-contested Democratic Party nomination.
Here would be the "hope": Hillary and Obama sit there and, of course, stick to the matter at hand with the Petraeus testimony. They are focused solely on the war, never ever, giving their respective campaigns a second thought as they pose their questions to General Petraeus.
Here is the "reality": When they ask cagey questions about what is going to be submitted to Congress, when they grill him on what would qualify as enough of a failure to trigger a recommendation to the president to call it quits, no, they are not asking him appropriate questions. These are all questions about the war, granted. But they are inappropriate questions to pose to a military general. The way in which Mrs. Clinton was shaping the discussion might have been acceptable in a political setting in an exchange with another politician. But they are not acceptable when posed to a military commander in an attempt to gather facts about the matter at hand.
This is a general. This is someone actively engaged in waging a war. He is not a politician. He doesn't decide to stay or go. Mrs. Clinton gets her say on that, but she shouldn't be trying to have her say in this context.
Mrs. Clinton wants to be the nuts-and-bolts Democratic Party nominee. However, she and many of her colleagues staunchly refuse to let this man be the nuts-and-bolts military commander that he is. Instead, they insist on drawing him into a completely inappropriate discussion for their own political gain.
Talking about the crisis in the VA hospital system does not belong in this setting. But the cameras and the numbers of pairs of eyes watching out there is just too big a temptation for a group of politicians to resist.
This is not the US Ambassador to the US Confederation of Conscientious War Protestors.
Broad foreign policy issues should not be the crux of the questions we have in these hearings. This man is not Condoleezza Rice, he is not on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and (to my knowledge) he is not affiliated with the National Security Council.
Obama noting that hearings shouldn't have been held on or around 9/11 was a standout moment in terms of trying to turn a nuts-and-bolts fact-finding mission into a politically-motivated media spectacle moment. Obama then launched into a diatribe that he admitted wasn't really meant for Petraeus, but for the administration. The question then becomes why you would then direct it towards Petraeus.
Our colorful representation in the Senate has a history of using such events as vehicles by which they can make names for themselves or bolster the reputations they have already established. However, what is striking here is the lengths they will resort to in this case. They won't even stay within the parameters of the event.
If MoveOn.org wants to refer to this man as General Betray Us, let them remember also the senators who disgrace us.
And themselves.