Today's testimony by Petraeus and Crocker used mysterious methodology and trivial indicators to inflate Republican hopes and keep US troops in Iraq.
By Matthew Yglesias
The Guardian
"For a highly anticipated event, the Monday testimony of General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker before the US House of Representatives proved strikingly anticlimactic. Everything the top military and civilian officials respectively in Iraq had to say had been thoroughly leaked and debated during the previous week......
Still, one can't help but wonder if the Republicans aren't like the cartoon coyote who already ran off the cliff and just hasn't realized it yet. Despite the high regard in which Petraeus is held by the American media, polls taken show that most citizens expect his testimony this week to be designed to mislead. Meanwhile, the GOP is in denial about the fact that even those experts who think Iraq might yet be saved see it as a process that could require more than a decade.
Instead, after six months of dodging questions about Iraq by saying we should wait for Petraeus' report in September, the new story is that we need to ... wait six more months to evaluate things then. And in March, we can expect the can to be kicked six months further down the road......."
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