Petraeus preaches to the choir.

Putz links to Hew Hughitt's interview with Gen. Petraeus, breathlessly adding,

"Every member of Congress should have to read this."

Should Petraeus really be sitting down with a delusional partisan hack like Hew, who's already convinced that the surge is the greatest strategy evah? Isn't that just pissing in the wind?

Sullivan:

If I were eager to maintain a semblance of military independence from the agenda of extremist, Republican partisans, I wouldn't go on the Hugh Hewitt show, would you? And yet Petraeus has done just that. I think such a decision to cater to one party's propaganda outlet renders Petraeus' military independence moot. I'll wait for the transcript. But Petraeus is either willing to be used by the Republican propaganda machine or he is part of the Republican propaganda machine. I'm beginning to suspect the latter.

Greenwald:

In December, 2003, Petraeus told Newsweek the following about the insurgent attacks: "What we've had starting a month ago or so is a sustained spike. Arguably the spike has already gone down."

In early 2004, Petraeus emphatically touted how diverse and non-sectarian were the Iraqi security forces, specifically insisting in Newsweek that "Iraq's security services are not dominated by non-Sunnis. 'Absolutely not . . . The national forces are national forces, typically Shia, Sunni, Kurdds, Yezidi, everything. There is no shortage from all the difficult areas.'" That was a relief, since it sure would have been terrible if the Iraqi sercurity forces turned out to be Shiite death squads fighting sectarian battles.

Finally, Jim Lehrer reported in 2003 on News Hour an exciting find:

The U.S. military has found a second trailer in Iraq that could have been a mobile bio-weapons lab. the commander of the 101st Airborne Division, Major General David Petraeus, confirmed that today.

I wonder what he's going to say when he goes to Congress in September. The suspense is absolutely unbearable.

Heh.