The New Jesus Does Radio
Specifically, the Hugh Hewitt show. Andrew has concerns:
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.
"Wait for the transcript" seems like the right thing to say. I've done the Hugh Hewitt show. It was a mistake. People shouldn't go on his show. But not everyone realizes that. At any rate, the transcript's up now and it's a mixed bag. Petraeus keeps resisting Hewitt's efforts to get him to say something like "this is just one front in the endless struggle against Iran-directed Islamofascism." At the same time, Petraeus seems unfazed by the fact that the core base of political support for an open-ended military commitment to Iraq is composed of lunatics like Hewitt. Hewitt's asking the questions so, naturally, the political situation in Iraq doesn't get brought up.
But it's precisely the dynamics of Iraqi politics that doom our mission there. It's nice that we've trained effective commando units, but on some level so what?