PETRAEUS SPEAKING REPUBLICANESE VERY FLUENTLY: "I DON'T KNOW"

So what does Petraeus know? He knows how to work out battlefield tactics and, from what I'm reading he's quite good at it. And because of that, Bush has decided to use him... as a partisan shield. And what he doesn't know... well he gave us the classic example today. When retiring Republican Senator John Warner asked Petraeus if the Bush Regime's recommendations, delivered by David "Cook the Books" Petraeus, would make America safer, Petraeus replied:

Sir, I don't know actually. I have not sat down and sorted out in my own mind.

I wonder how many people think Bush has. Watch it. And keep in mind that both of Bush's spokesmen refused to be drawn out when asked how long it would take to effect the kind of political solution in Iraq that would allow us to end the disastrous and bloody occupation which serves the interests of only two parties: bin-Laden and Bush's war-profiteering cronies. This morning's NY Times cuts through the crap and spells it out in black and white for anyone too thick to grasp: Officials Cite Long-Term Need for U.S. in Iraq.

When Crocker was pressed hard enough, he babbled on about some summer. "It could be well beyond the end of next summer. It certainly will be well beyond the end of next summer before Iraq can achieve the end state I've laid out. There's no question. What that implies for our presence, levels and so forth, that I can't judge at this point."

Most of the senators who spoke up, regardless of party, expressed disatisfaction with the message Petraeus and Crocker were carrying from the Regime. Even reflexive Inside-the-Beltway rubber stamps like Biden (D-DE), Norm Coleman (R-MN) and Lugar (R-IN) are losing patience with the Bush Regime's plan for a decade long committment in Iraq. The senators who have actually opposed Bush's war agenda-- like Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Chris Dodd (D-CT), Russ Feingold (D-WI), Ted Kennedy (D-MA), and Barack Obama (D-IL) went beyond a show of frustration. Remember those soldiers who wrote that stunning piece, The War As We Saw It, in the NY Times a couple weeks ago? Two of them will have no opportunity to respond to Petraeus' betrayal. They were killed this week. Obama called the Iraq campaign “a disastrous foreign policy mistake” that has spawned one huge question: “How do we clean up the mess?” Petraeus and Crocker didn't know the answer to that either-- but that's Bush's job and he was cowering in the White House trying to cut a deal with Pelosi and Reid while Crocker and Petraeus were taking the heat.