I am actually pretty shocked that Gen. Petraeus took time from his busy schedule to appear on what is little more than an organ of the right-wing spin machine.
Just kidding. It isn’t surprising at all.
You would honestly think that the military, at the very least, would want their leadership to appear to be more than GOP party organs. Instead, Petraeus is appearing on Tinkerbell central, and now brings his credibility into question.
Excellent work, General. Was Limbaugh busy, or something?
*** Update ***
Hewitt responds to the links of disapproval:
The interview with General Petraeus generated a long list of links, some from silly people, some from extremists who denounce the general for talking to a member of the center-right media thus revealing themselves as anti-intellectual screamers, and some from writers who carefully assessed his words and made some interesting observations. Among the latter is The Belmont Club, and I think you should read all of Wretchard’s analysis.
Some examples of the “intellectual rigor” on display during this purely political interview:
HH: Do you think al Qaeda in Iraq is buckling, General Petraeus?
HH: Now stepping back a little bit from the day to day, General Petraeus, how would you explain to the civilians listening, and hundreds of thousands of them at this moment, the strategic interest of the United States at stake in Iraq?
HH: Is the media doing a good job of taking that ample amount of information and transmitting it in an objective fashion in your view, General Petraeus?
HH: Wow.
And I thought you had to go to the Creationist Museum for that kind of “intellectual rigor.”
ThymeZone
From the article.
OMFG. My jaw shatters as it plummets and smashes against the floor.
We have them Off Plan. Oh Sweet Jesus. They really did find the right liar for this job.
When this is all over, if it ever is, I will remember those words along with Bring it On, Turning a Corner, Making Progress in Iraq, and Weapons of Mass Destruction.
We have them Off Plan. Oh, give me oxygen. Oh Christ.
The.Mind.Boggles.
Jake
Too. Much. Irony … *
Dreggas
What did you expect? Petraeus had the backing of the Fluffer In Chief, Joe Liebershit, of course he’d go on Hewitt’s show to help get him “primed” in the way only fluffers can.
Bubblegum Tate
We have them Off Plan over there so we don’t go Off Message over here.
Seriously, though, I respect Petraeus a bunch, but this is just plain pathetic from top to bottom.
Zifnab
Are you fucking kidding? The military has been sucking GOP nut since the fifties. It probably had something to do with the Truman Commission to investigate military contractor malpractice and snowballed from there. Military brass love the GOP because the GOP loves the military contractors and the military contractors make sure that high ranking army officers totally bank as lobbyists and salesmen after they retire.
But the GOP and the Armed Services have been in bed together for generations. This should be a surprise to exactly no-one. What comes as a surprise is the way Bush has managed to alienate so many of his own military commanders when they all still know who signs their paychecks every month.
Tom Hilton
Meanwhile, local wingnut Debra Saunders says she won’t admit it’s time to withdraw until Petraeus says it’s unwinnable. Because of course Petraeus is going to be totally objective and honest and not just say what he was hired to say. Why, he wouldn’t go on a fair and balanced show like Hewitt’s if he had any bias.
Tom Hilton
That is beautiful.
BFR
I am actually pretty shocked that Gen. Petraeus took time from his busy schedule to appear on what is little more than an organ of the right-wing spin machine.
It actually makes sense if your goal is only to keep the 28%crowd from abandoning ship.
You would honestly think that the military, at the very least, would want their leadership to appear to be more than GOP party organs.
If he doesn’t do the show, they can fire him and find someone who will. Granted, it’s not quite that simple but Petraeus likely sold his soul a long time ago.
Paul L.
Shocking next you will tell me that paragon of truth Joe Wilson appears on the Keith Olbermann.
I find it funny that you are calling Hugh Hewitt a organ of the right-wing spin machine. (A point on which I agree) by linking to Glenn Greenwald a organ of the left-wing spin machine.
ThymeZone
Joe Wilson is not the point man in keeping the country in a useless, expensive and dishonest war, you stupid shit.
Where do you come up with this crap you post? Is ankle biting like a little yappy Chihuahua all you can muster?
Jake
Unless he means this Joe Wilson.
If he means former diplomat Wilson, he tried to keep us out of a useless, expensive clusterfuck of a war and we all know where that got him and his wife. So maybe Pet’s rattling off the party line to protect his family from The Family.
But I think we should go easy on PaulEll. Apparently his yappy lap dogs ate the jackalopes and I’m sure he’s heartbroken.
Paul L.
And Gen. Petraeus is the “point man” in keeping the US in Iraq?
What about George W. Bush/Tony Snow/Dick Cheney/Sec. of Defense Gates?
I saw the opportunity to take a shot at Glenn Greenwald, Joe Wilson and Keith Olbermann.
Like Tom Hilton did with “local wingnut Debra Saunders”.
jg
Greenwald is a shrill lefty. He’s repetitve to the point of making you ill. But he does not spin.
Tony J
Petraeus angled for this job on the grounds that he was The Anti-Insurgency Guy, didn’t he? And he took it knowing full-well that the troops simply didn’t exist to carry out the kind of anti-insurgency strategy he’d won that honorific by formulating.
What does that tell you? Other than that he’s a willing placeholder, a Comma-in-Chief if you will. He knows he can’t do the job he was given, but in common with most of the people El Residente promotes, that’s not really relevent to the job at hand, which appears to be giving the Occupation a patina of credibility for another Friedman or two. Come September he’ll be saying how impressed he is by the progress Operation Surge to Victory has made, and if he can have just a couple of hundred (thousand) more troops, everything will be ponies and ticklesticks.
The fact that he feels compelled to do a bit of pre-emptive fluffing on the Home Front would appear to suggest that the White House is flustered enough by the recent Congressional Sleepover to commence withdrawals from the Bank of Petraeus Credibility Fund a little earlier than planned.
Tsulagi
Yep. It’s the selling of The Surge. Iraqi government restricting reporters’ access to locations insurgents have attacked and trying to prevent photos/film of the aftermath of the larger ones. Don’t want that on the teevee. New DoD restrictions on milbloggers. Wouldn’t want anything not sunny written to cloud judgment by the readers or a YouTube of anything more edgy than The Stroll by McCain.
Now Petraeus. He’s a good guy, but no doubt he’s being “encouraged” to do his part too. You think the previous Surgeon General, the one prohibited from attending the Special Olympics because the evildoer Kennedy family supports that organization, was the only general who gets brilliant direction from the caped Commander Guy?
Petraeus has been given the only mission that matters to this spoiled brat admin…carry the sack of shit that has become OIF to the next guy. The president has a deep sense of responsibility and accountability like that.
Just a prediction, but it looks like the immediate plan is for Petraeus to call The Surge a qualified success in September with the admin doing anything at that time to get another Friedman unit. That would get them into March/April of next year. By then the Dem/Pub prez nominees will be known. Then at that time, the line from
Baghdad BobTony Snow could be something along the lines of “The president doesn’t want to foreclose any options in fighting the GSAVE on the next president.” Mission Accomplished.Davebo
Look, is Hugh Hewitt a mouthpiece for the GOP?
Definately. Without a shred of freakin doubt.
Is General Petraus now a mouthpiece of the GOP?
No, more a mouthpiece of Dick Cheney. He certainly has every right to appear on whatever show he wants. But it tends to spoil the argument that we can’t do anything until he opens that mouthpiece in September.
Punchy
Paul, you owe me a new keyboard, perferably a spit-up-proof one this time.
Jake
Wow, General, that’s a huge piece you’ve got there [pant, pant]. You can almost smell the relief in Who’s voice as he realizes Pet isn’t going to spank him a la Wm. Odom.
No. If he’s dragging out this rat orgy to satisfy the Child-in-Charge he isn’t a good guy. He’s the opposite of a good guy. Maybe he was a good guy, but once any leader starts making decisions based not on reality but what he (or someone else) wants to be reality, you’ve got what is known as a bad guy.
pacified
Generals who are more concerned about politics and the President, instead of the men they command, deserve no respect.
Paul L.
You can have the one jg owns me.
Redleg
For a person of Hewitt’s caliber, those are rigorous questions.
Barry
“You would honestly think that the military, at the very least, would want their leadership to appear to be more than GOP party organs. Instead, Petraeus is appearing on Tinkerbell central, and now brings his credibility into question.”
I question whether or not they *are* anything more than GOP party organs, for the most part.
Pug
And Gen. Petraeus is the “point man” in keeping the US in Iraq?
Well, yes he is.
You can see this one coming from miles away. The Decider leaves the decision up to his hand picked general. The hand picked general reports that, surprise, everything the Decider has been saying is true. There is progress. The surge is working. We need more time.
Who can argue with a general? Of course, isn’t it supposed to be elected civilians in the U.S. giving orders to the generals and not the other way around?
Dreggas
Translation:
lot’s of sucking/slurping sounds followed by an audible swallowing noise…
demimondian
But, John, it *is* intellectual rigor. The problem is that the right margin of your screen cut of the last word. The original read “intellectual rigor mortis”.
Bubblegum Tate
ZING! Now that’s a good line.
dmbeaster
Why expect anything objective out of Petraeus? The summary at Greenwald of his past cheerleading is damning.
I could care less about his alleged military smarts — he has been a propogandist for the Bush administration this entire war. He has been making rosy conclusions and predictions the entire war, and been consistently wrong. There is no reason at all to believe that his current plan is influenced more by practicalities rather than more by politics.
He was selected because he will play Bush’s political game regarding this war. The Hugh Hewitt appearance confirms that. He promotes himself for years by advertising his willingness to be a political tool, and surprise, he is rewarded under Bush so he can fulfill that role.
jrg
The man told the truth when Bush was lying to get us into a war, you dickless troll. Hundreds of thousands of people are dead as a result (including the women and children you were railing about yesterday).
Tom Hilton
Given how far divorced from reality one has to be to think Iraq is anything but a catastrophic clusterfuck, ‘wingnut’ is just about the kindest possible term to use for a war supporter.
Perry Como
He is now. Bush fired all of the generals that wanted to get the troops out of Iraq.
Jake
And the GOP plays with it’s organs, a lot.
It’s that kind of party.
Rome Again
When the GOP Congress is waiting on his report to take any action in getting us out of Iraq, YES!
RobF
Hey COLE, how about commenting on the DEMs attempt to
remove and admendent to homeland security that would
protect citizens that report suspicious behavior that
could lead to a terror strike…or is that tongue of
yours tsk tsk’ing, that A correction is needed from all
the paranoia.
I puke on the Bushies, but then democrats express their view that terrorism is a con game, what’s a voter to do.
Cassidy
That’s quite large assumption to assume that the military is part of the “GOP machine”. Most of us live outside the political squabbles.
Something else to keep in mind is that morale is a force modifier. Do you really expect the lead guy to go on national television and say that the job is being done poorly.
Rusty Shackleford
Is Greenwald “shrill” like Paul Krugman is “shrill”?
I’ve learned that words “shrill” and “smear”, when translated from Republicanese, mean “correct” and “factually sound”.
Handjobs like Paul L. continue on with the tired talking points the Right passed out ages ago. It’s still “Clown Wilson” and “Shrill Greenwald”, and forever will be in their “looniverse”, facts be damned.
It’s one thing to be stupid, you can’t help it. It’s quite another to lie to yourself. The Paul L.’s of the world lie to themselves. It’s part of the reason why they’re so angry. They can’t even trust themselves.
DougJ
Great catch, John. I hadn’t seen this elsewhere.
Pb
Compared to the idiots who smear him, he might as well be the fucking Oracle of Delphi.
See above; nice spinning, Paul L. — but next time, try adding facts in the rinse cycle.
chopper
given all the softballs hewitt lobbed at the guy, you’d think he could come up with something better.
“so general, if you were an ice cream flavor, what flavor would you be?”
“uh…is ‘failure’ a flavor?”
Tom Hilton
More or less. To be a little more precise, they mean “we can’t plausibly deny the substance of what this person says, so we’ll divorce tone from substance and try to discredit it on the basis of the former.”
Wilfred
Well I like it. Slang was getting boring, but the Gin’ral saved the day.
“You better not mess with me, yo. I’ll knock ya motherfucking ass off plan, motherfucker. You readin’ me?” Oooooh.
My boxer puppy just tore up my tomato patch. When I catch him, I’m gonna off plan his ass.
I like it. The rest of you snide bastards can go OP yourselves.
jg
OK shrill was the wrong word. Get over it.
Protect them from what? What danger is there in reporting suspicious behavior?
Zifnab
Ok, so let’s say there was a ticking time bomb and you, Jack Bauer, needed to punch a guy in the face after wrapping your fist in razor wire. Suddenly, a jackalope hops out of the bushes and reports you to the police. This legislation would prevent you from being dragged off before you could grab the bomb, shove it down your pants, jump out of the plane, and detonate it in mid-air, with the concussive blast knocking you to safety.
Under the status quo, Jack Bauer would be thrown in jail and some major US city would be reduced to rubble. Under the Republican amendment, we’d have the makings of a blockbuster motion picture. But moonbats are too busy sucking up to the ACLU to remember what is important.
Grumpy Code Monkey
The only way Petraeus will give anything other than an optimistic assessment in September is if there is a catastrophic and highly visible meltdown in security that’s obvious to even the most wilfully self-deluded wingnut, regardless of whether he’s been a cheerleader for this administration or not. He’s a General, of course he’s going to put the best face on a military operation as he possibly can. That’s what generals do.
The situation in September will probably not be any worse than it is now; that will be proof enough that the surge is working, and the Deciderator will remind us to be patient, that he realizes more than anyone else that war is not easy, and that we cannot afford to lose or else something really bad will happen…somewhere…
Jake
Holy shit but that’s funny.
Especially the part where you suggest anything Eddie’s little brother does would be viewed as suspicious by a red-blooded jackalope.
John S.
Around here, we refer to Paul L. as our resident ‘zombie colon’. Somehow – despite being torn through the ass of the undead – he manages to tap out meaningless posts with his dangling entrails.
And I still think that’s pretty kind to Paul once you become familiar with his special brand of stupidity.
Rome Again
NO, that’s the whole point.
Cassidy
So what is the point? That a General is being a General? Newsflash: grass is green.
John S.
Yes, I can just imagine Admiral Dewey sitting down for an ‘honest’ chat about the status of his naval campaign in the Spanish-American War with William Randolph Hearst…
Generals should be in the business of commanding troops – not having pep talks with pseudo-journalists.
Badtux
Rome. Late Rome. Where competent generals were swiftly purged and replaced with incompetents because it was feared that competent generals might, like, actually defy the Emperor or even worse might march on Rome and seize the imperial throne for themselves.
The Busheviks can’t tolerate anything less than lickspittle devotion from their military lackeys, feels threatened by anybody who dares contradict the Imperial edicts of what is “real” and “not real”, which is why everybody in the top military leadership with the least bit of spine has been purged. The problem is that lickspittles don’t have the spine to actually, like, win. Which is fine right now, when, as with Rome in 300AD, we don’t have any real enemies capable of taking on our military. But the problem is that as the empire decays, real enemies arise… and if you have by then destroyed the competence of the imperial legions, you end up with a real enemy destroying your military like the Goths destroyed Valens’ army at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. That was a direct consequence of decades of purges of the officer corps to reward obedience over competence — military historians are quick to point out that if traditional Roman discipline and competence had been in place, the majority of Valens’ army would have formed up into squares and marched right through the Gothic heavy cavalry to safety.
The only question is this: How long to our own Adrianople? Given the speed at which things happen nowdays (I mean, the U.S. went from republic to empire in record time compared to how long it took Rome to do so!), I can only guess that it will be too soon for our own comfort.
– Badtux the History Penguin
Bob
I’m glad all you left nuts know what’s good for us. I’ve turned off my tv (except for Fox) because of your left nut MSM. We’ve been here all along but were suppressed by your MSM. Thank GOD for the internet. (and Fox) :-)
Jason Van Steenwyk
Heh. We support the troops. By calling them “shills” when they don’t predict disaster.
You guys are beyond stupid. This whole thread is an ad hominem argument.
And it’s not even a very good one, because no one here has defended his or her criticisms of Petraeus by referencing the text and substance of his remarks.
Hewitt asks some softballs. And that’s Petraeus’s fault?
And his decision to agree to an interview with Hewitt is somehow dispositive? That’s absurd. The only way you can draw the kind of conclusion you’re trying to draw is if you could demonstrate that Hewitt was repeatedly accepting interviews with people like Limbaugh, Hannity, and O’Reilly, but had a long pattern of refusing interviews with more mainstream news sources.
But if such a pattern exists, no one has bothered to demonstrate it.
Congratulations, John Cole. You’ve created quite a cesspool of lazy-assed groupthinkers here.
bains
I note that your first link went to Glenn Greenwald. And you say “Petraeus is appearing on Tinkerbell central…” Such irony.
ps why not link the actual interview? Afraid that folks might make up their own mind outside your and Greenwald’s narrative?
Jason Van Steenwyk
Actually, what I meant to say was this whole retarded thread was an ad hominem attack, except that it’s even an incompetent ad hominem, because you’re actually attacking General Petraeus by objecting to Hugh Hewitt!!!!
Balloon Juice Logic:
“I hate brussel sprouts! ‘Cause my mom’s a lousy driver!”
John Cole
Yes, Jason. Appearing on a blatantly partisan talk radio show in which softball questions are lobbed at you so you can respond with dull platitudes does compromise the appearance of independence. I am not blaming Petraeus for the questions Hewitt asked, I am blaming him for not having the common sense to decline the interview in the first place.
The dumbest thing in all of this is that you all have bought so far into the belief system that the liberal media is out to get you that Petraeus even considers appearing on shows run by wankers like Hewitt.