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General David Petraeus's tenure in Iraq draws to a close at the end of the month, and it's a measure of his success that he is departing to far less political fanfare than when his tour began. In September 2007, MoveOn.org called him General "Betray-Us," and Hillary Clinton said his claims of progress weren't credible. Now those critics are silent. When General Petraeus took command 18 months ago, Iraq was sliding into chaos, and President Bush's "surge" was the last chance to bring the country under control. Last April, Majority Leader Harry Reid confidently declared, "The war is lost," and...

It was a pretty eventful week in the world of all things political. And as expected, the mainstream news media honed in on the wrong story. Instead of amplifying an astounding example of one of the key differences between John McCain and Barack Obama, the press, ever hungry for anything that can be used to smear President Bush, went bonkers over a dullard named Scott McClellan who happens to be a former White House press secretary. It seems that Mr. McClellan, bitter over being pushed out of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., decided to write a "Mommie Dearest" - type tell-all that...

Al Qaeda's most fervent supporters acknowledge that Iraq has turned into a disaster for them. Nibras Kazimi, a visiting scholar at the Hudson Institute, reports on a posting at one of al Qaeda's web sites: A prolific jihadist sympathizer has posted an ‘explosive’ study on one of the main jihadist websites in which he laments the dire situation that the mujaheddin find themselves in Iraq by citing the steep drop in the number of insurgent operations conducted by the various jihadist groups, most notably Al-Qaeda’s 94 percent decline in operational ability over the last 12 months when only a year...

Surprise, surprise. Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, wants to put a halt to any more troop withdrawals for the foreseeable future. The highly politicized Petraeus seemed to be dutifully following his White House marching orders when he testified before congressional committees earlier this week. Under his scenario, there will be no drawdown of U.S. forces in that strife-ridden country until President Bush leaves office. That’s fine with Bush, who obviously has no intention of ending this futile war on his watch. Apparently feeling no responsibility for starting the war, Bush is planning to pass the Iraqi...

Well, it looks like the Surrendercrats in Congress have decided to be manipulated by the agents of evil in the Middle East again. It really is a repulsive spectacle to see our leaders carrying the water for fanatic Islamist extremists. They are simply puppets be choreographed by with the help of the SurrenderMedia. Here is something [note: the link is down, probably due to traffic] our leaders should have noticed on the run up to the hearings this week on Iraq and the testimony of General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker: At least 52 rockets or mortar bombs hit the heavily...

Didn't see one and we need one.

The critics said it couldn't be done, but the vision and determination of General David Petraeus have brought greater security and cause for optimism to the people of Iraq. He is The Sunday Telegraph's Person of the Year .........For a man whose critics say he is far too fond of the television cameras, General David Petraeus, commander of US forces in Iraq, has been rather out of the limelight this Christmas. The sprightly, media-friendly 55-year-old is not perturbed, however, that his face is no longer number one item on the US networks. As he said last week, where Iraq is...

The great thing about the Web is that we can easily RETRIEVE embarrassing information about the candidates. In this case, a video of Joe Biden loudly putting his foot in the mouth earlier this year about the "inevitable" failure of the Surge was posted on YouTube by none other than Joe Biden himself (JoeBidendotcom). This video was posted on YouTube on March 14 of this year so this bloviating Senate speech by Biden was made on or before then. Notice how the Democrats are now RELUCTANT to talk about Iraq? That is because the Surge has been an astounding...

I had to look up the word "conniption." I wasn't sure how to spell it, but I'm sure that the likes of Code Pink, MoveOn, and other far left anti-war groups had a collective conniption fit last week. One of their poster boys, John Murtha, quit toeing their line. Surely what followed were the same fits of rage I've seen them have before. In September at a Washington D.C. rally as Senator Joe Lieberman began to address a group of pro-mission vets and Gold Star Families, several members of the anti-war groups charged toward the stage with seemingly unrestricted fury,...

Those with long memories remember that American forces were winning the Tet offensive in Vietnam while the CBS leftist commentator, Walter Cronkite, was lying to us and telling us that we were losing. This gave the Democrat-controlled Congress the impetus and the backing to throw away the honorable peace accords negotiated by the Nixon Administration, pull the rug out from under our troops and from the government of South Vietnam, and turn a phased withdrawal leaving in place some hard-won arrangements into a shameful rout. I thought I would never again see the day when history would repeat itself

"Congressional Democrats are trying to divert attention from insulting our military leader in Iraq and pandering to the loony left by attacking Rush Limbaugh. He is one of the strongest supporters of our troops, yet Democrats claim he is not being strong enough. I wonder who General Petraeus and his troops think is most supportive?" Fred08.com

Conventional wisdom is hardening around the proposition that Fred Dalton Thompson is too lazy, ill-prepared, tired, old, lackluster, inexperienced, inconsistent and bald to make a successful run for President. Of course, conventional wisdom rarely gets anything right. When it does, it's only by accident. In this case conventional wisdom is not just wrong but comically so. Thompson will win the Republican nomination for two reasons. First, he's a very impressive candidate. Second, there's no realistic alternative. He will win the general election for the same two reasons. Let's start by considering the Thompson's Republican competition. John McCain's candidacy may not...

So Hillary Rodham Clinton had a pretty good week. But so did the Republicans. How can that be? Answer: As the junior senator from New York closes in on the Democratic nomination, Republican prospects for the general election are improving - because concern for national honor eclipses enthusiasm for national health insurance. As Clinton demonstrated during her pentathlon of Sunday talk shows, she is an effective Q-and-A advocate for her new health care plan. And that probably guarantees her the Democratic nomination. But Clinton is ahead of the Republican hopefuls, although not by much - just three points or so...

In light of Osama bin Ladsen's videotaped message to the West (Or was it a press release from DNC Chairman Howard Dean?), one might be given to muse that liberal abhorrence for the President's surveillance of incoming phone calls from known terrorists might ultimately stem from self-interest. Perhaps they simply do not want to be monitored as they share strategies and talking points with the al-Qaida leader. Furthermore, the DNC may decide to keep a copy of the bin Laden tape, which could come in handy during the 2008 campaign season. Just as aspiring politicians feel compelled to pander in...

President Bush has endorsed General David Petraeus's recommendation to begin withdrawing 30,000 U.S. troops from Iraq by next summer. Yet the drawdown would only restore troop levels to where they were before the surge began in January 2007. In the final months of 2006, debate in Washington centered on how fast a reduction from pre-surge levels could occur. The Iraq Study Group recommended that approximately half of the 130,000 troops then in Iraq be withdrawn by early 2008. In marked contrast to that and similar proposals, President Bush is now endorsing a step that would mean a return to the...

The ethnic origins of General David Petraeus are apparently Dutch, which is a shame because there’s something sonorously classical about the family name of the commander of the US forces in Iraq. When you discover that his father was christened Sixtus, the fantasy really takes flight. Somewhere in the recesses of the brain, where memory mingles hazily with imagination, I fancy I can recall toiling through a schoolboy Latin textbook that documented the progress of one Petraeus Sixtus as he triumphantly extended the imperium romanum across some dusty plain in Asia Minor.

For many in Washington, the biggest unanswered question from Army. Gen. David Petraeus’ high-profile, low-satisfaction testimony last week was not about military strategy but about political tactics. Why has the anti-war movement been unable to translate the clear public mandate they claim into any clear change in our government’s Iraq policy? To most war opponents, the blame increasingly lies with the Democratic leadership in Congress, for not taking a hard enough line with President Bush and not fighting to cut off war funding. And their frustration is visibly bubbling over — the provocative group Code Pink, for example, has actually...

If there is a phrase more closely associated with both Hillary and Bill Clinton than "the politics of personal destruction," it does not come to mind. All the others -- "It's the economy, stupid," for instance -- belong to one or the other, but "the politics of personal destruction" is a phrase both Clintons have used repeatedly -- so much so, it seems, that for Hillary it has lost all meaning. When, for instance, Gen. David Petraeus was slimed as "General Betray Us," Hillary Clinton looked the other way. This was the politics of personal expediency. The swipe at Petraeus...

Muslim terrorist leaders are "thankful" for the efforts of activist and congressional candidate Cindy Sheehan, stating in a new book Sheehan's anti-Iraq war activities and her statements against President Bush "give us hope" the U.S. will change its Mideast policies. "You [Sheehan] give us hope and you show us that there are different Americans than those whom we know," stated Ramadan Adassi, chief of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group in the West Bank's Anskar Refugee Camp. "This sincere woman says what we've been saying all these last years – Saddam never threatened America or its security. Now Iraq...

The gravest charge you can level at a military man, as MoveOn.org essentially did to Gen. Petraeus with its infamous "General Betray Us" ad, is to call him a traitor.But surely close behind in the catalog of calumny is to call a soldier a coward. And that's what Frank Rich did in his [p.p.v.] New York Times column of today.Writes Rich [emphasis added]: General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker could grab an hour of prime television time only by slinking into the safe foxhole of Fox News, where Brit Hume chaperoned them on a gloomy, bunkerlike set before an audience of...

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070915/NEWS09/709150332/1001/NEWS Cannot be posted due to copyright issues.

In the clamor of Democrats assailing President Bush on Iraq, presidential candidate John Edwards has found a way to be heard after Bush addresses the nation Thursday night: He's buying time for a rebuttal. Edwards has bought two minutes of air time on MSNBC, scheduled to air after Bush's 15-minute televised speech from the White House at 9 p.m. EDT. Bush is expected to announce plans to reduce the American troop presence in Iraq by up to 30,000 by next summer, but say that he will condition those and further cuts on continued progress. "Unfortunately, the president is pressing on...

On the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Americans were treated to two starkly contrasting images that speak centuries of difference between the U.S. and its enemies. In Frame One, we see Gen. David H. Petraeus testifying before Congress on the status of the war in Iraq. In Frame Two is Osama bin Laden in a new video -- resplendent in white robes, his beard recently rinsed dark to conceal the gray -- promising that Islam will subjugate the West. One an image of courage, integrity and honor; the other a caricature of manhood. Then there is a third frame....

You remember Mitt Romney's forceful condemnation of the MoveOn ad, don't you? And Fred Thompson's? And John McCain's? No? Well, they're all here. But you don't remember them, do you? You've probably noticed only one GOP candidate's foot-stamping phony outrage at the ad, because, among the Republican candidates, Rudolph Giuliani owns this issue. He's obsessed with it. Here's the latest: Mr. Giuliani, a Republican presidential candidate, sought -- and received -- space in Friday editions of [The New York Times] for an advertisement in which he praises General Petraeus. Neither the Giuliani campaign nor The Times's advertising department would disclose...

DAVID Petraeus is a highly decorated four-star general. He has been designated by the commander-in- chief to lead the young men and women who comprise the great U.S. force of 160,000 soldiers and Marines serving on the battlefields of Iraq, at great danger to themselves and to the officers who lead them. Most soldiers, in pointing out their military honors, will cite the Combat Infantry Badge - which the general wears, as he does those medals awarded to him for personal bravery in combat. Gen. Petraeus has sworn, as do all our military officers, to defend the Constitution of the...

It's a flip-flop that would be the envy of John Kerry on a good windsurfing day off Nantucket. For the last two days, Chris Matthews had been excoriating General David Petraeus for his reluctance to opine on the effect of the Iraq war on America's safety at home. Suddenly this morning, Matthews has decided that -- guess what? -- it's not Petraeus's job to make pronouncements of that sort. View video here. As I described here, it began on "Hardball" two nights ago, with this Matthews diatribe against Petraues for his reluctance to answer the question from Sen. John Warner...

Even before Gen. David Petraeus began his account of the "substantial" progress brought about by the troop increase in Iraq, congressional critics of President Bush's policy had come to the depressing conclusion that the surge has done what the administration needed it to do. It has not won the war. It has not achieved reconciliation at the national level in Iraq. But it has bought more political time in Washington, bringing Bush closer than ever to reaching one of his main objectives: keeping large numbers of troops in Iraq beyond Election Day 2008. Yet if the testimony of Petraeus and...

As far as Chris Matthews is concerned, David Petraeus, four-star general, commander of the Multi-National Force-Iraq, someone who has devoted his life to serving our country, is no better than Charlie McCarthy, a ventriloquist's dummy.View video here. As I noted yesterday, "Hardball" host Matthews had gone apoplectic over the fact that in his initial response to a senator's question, Petraeus wouldn't say whether the war in Iraq makes America safer. Shortly thereafter, in the course of the same Senate testimony, Petraeus made clear his view that America's security is indeed tied to our effort in Iraq. I observed that Petraeus's...

Saw this ad on Dallas Craigslist and thought everyone would find it interesting & amusing. ---------------------------------- Reply to: fellowship@moveon.org Date: 2007-09-10, 10:15AM CDT MoveOn is starting a fellowship program, to give talented up-and-comers a chance to work on the biggest issues in the progressive movement. Rising stars of all backgrounds are encouraged to apply for this 5-month, full-time, paid position. Details or to apply: http://www.moveon.org/fellowship MoveOn Fellows will work alongside our top campaigners to end the war in Iraq, stop the climate crisis, win the '08 election and make their mark on other high-profile issues. The program will start with...

Warning to Bush administration officials: when being interviewed by Meredith Vieira, be prepared to make your point in 7-10 seconds, or risk being rudely caught off by the "Today" co-anchor. Twice in the course of her interview of Condoleezza Rice this morning, Vieira intemperately interrupted the Secretary of State just seconds after she began responding to her host's question. MEREDITH VIEIRA: Yesterday Senator John Warner asked General Petraeus whether the war in Iraq is making us any safer, and the general responded "I don't know." [Note: in subsequent testimony before the same committee, Petraeus made clear the link between Iraq...

The biggest news yesterday came before General David Petraeus or Ambassador Ryan Crocker uttered a single word in the hearings on progress in Iraq.And it came in the form of a newspaper ad, paid for by MoveOn.org. The ad, which accused Petraeus of "cooking the books for the White House", was roundly condemned by Republicans who time and again in the hearings held up the ad in the New York Times and called on Democrats to condemn it. The statement from RNC spokesman Mike Duncan was typical of the rhetoric: "Will Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and the rest of the...

In the wake of the odious MoveOn.org ad calling our commander in Iraq "General Betray Us," [read Dean Barnett's excellent take here] you might have thought the last thing a responsible member of the media would do would be to accuse other senior officials of "betrayal." I did say "responsible." On this afternoon's "Hardball," Chris Matthews accused President Bush of "betrayal" for his handling of Iraq. The "Hardball" host was fuming over Gen. Petraeus's reluctance to state whether the war in Iraq would make America safer. CHRIS MATTHEWS: He couldn't say whether what we're doing in Iraq makes America safer...

IN THE SPRING of 1954, the US Senate convened hearings at the instigation of Senator Joseph McCarthy to press his anticommunist investigations into the Department of the Army. The hearings were broadcast live on television, and the American public was able to witness firsthand the tactics McCarthy used to intimidate his foes. At a critical moment in the hearings, a key governmental witness, Army lawyer Joseph Welch, rose to defend one of the junior Army lawyers whose career, Welch alleged, McCarthy had destroyed. Welch turned to McCarthy and memorably intoned: "Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator. You have...

Some people are hard to shop for, but when it comes to MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski it's going to be a breeze. Next to her name on my Chanukah list, I'm putting her down without hesitation . . . for a Roget's Thesaurus. Because when it comes to describing the performance of people across her political divide, Mika seems stuck on a solitary word: "underwhelming."As noted here, reading the news of Fred Thompson's "Tonight Show" appearance last week, Mika editorialized that "it was sort of underwhelming, but . . . it's done."At the top of today's "Morning Joe," host Joe Scarborough...

Is Code Pink to the left what the Westboro Baptist Church is to the right? While the anti-war group and the anti-gay church denomination could not have more different politics, the bizarre tactics that both use seem so self-defeating as to give credence to conspiracy theories that they're not what they seem. The Topeka-based church, of course, is best known for attending the funerals of U.S. soliders with signs asserting that God is incurring His wrath upon America because of the country's tolerance for homosexuality. "God hates Fags" is a perennial favorite among Westboro's subtle sign-wavers. But just as the...

Mr. Chairmen, Ranking Members, Members of the Committees, thank you for the opportunity to provide my assessment of the security situation in Iraq and to discuss the recommendations I recently provided to my chain of command for the way forward. At the outset, I would like to note that this is my testimony. Although I have briefed my assessment and recommendations to my chain of command, I wrote this testimony myself. It has not been cleared by, nor shared with, anyone in the Pentagon, the White House, or Congress. As a bottom line up front, the military objectives of the...

With its full-page “General Betray Us?” ad in the New York Times, MoveOn.org has once again put itself at the forefront of the antiwar movement. And if past patterns are any guide, a number of Democrats are embarrassed, and even angered, by MoveOn’s actions but are afraid to reveal the true extent of their feelings. MoveOn simply has too much fundraising clout — and a fear-inducing inclination to attack Democrats who stray from the MoveOn line — for many in the party to take it on...

The president had the courage to change course on Iraq. Does Congress? Today, Gen. David Petraeus--commander of our forces in Iraq--returns to Washington to report on the war in Iraq and the new counterinsurgency strategy he has been implementing there. We hope that opponents of the war in Congress will listen carefully to the evidence that the U.S. military is at last making real and significant progress in its offensive against al Qaeda in Iraq. Consider how the situation has changed. A year ago, al Qaeda in Iraq controlled large swaths of the country's territory. Today it is being driven...

Following their testimony to Congress, General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker will appear exclusively on FOXNEWS Monday at 9pm EDT for one hour live interview with Brit Hume... Developing...

Leading Democrats on Sunday preemptively assailed the expected findings on Iraq due this week from the top U.S. general in Iraq as "dead, flat wrong" and said that President George W. Bush's calls for continued patience there would simply extend an "unconscionable" and "completely unacceptable" policy. The pointed comments from the Democrats, including Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and a presidential hopeful, and Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, seemed designed to undercut the impact of the much-awaited reports from General David Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad. "This president has no...

The following letter was sent to Senator Warner after his comments urging President Bush to start an Iraq troop withdrawal: Senator Warner, It wasn’t that long ago when I saw you and a whole bunch of other Senators sitting around the table at the confirmation hearing of General Petraeus. One after another, you and others uttered your “words of wisdom” and wished the General “Godspeed” I wondered what the General was thinking at that moment, whether he shared my suspicion that he was being sent there TO FAIL, thereby giving you and others a Get Out of Iraq Free Card....

It's no wonder that sensible people just shake their heads and wonder what's wrong with the extremists of the far left when they come up with such off the wall nonsense and then try to pass it off as real political analysis. It just makes people who have even the slightest clue about what is really going on in the world double over with laughter. Such is the case with today's comedic attempt at political forecasting by nut in residence Ed Garvey of the Madison, Wisconsin Capital Times. Columnist Garvey, in true nutroots fashion, thinks he has hit on the...

These are the "birth pangs" of a "new Middle East," said Condi Rice last summer, as Israel pounded Lebanon. Unfortunately, the new Middle East may make us all pray for the return of the old. Hamas is today engaged in savage street-fighting with Fatah for control of Gaza. If Hamas prevails, it could convert this Palestinian enclave into a terrorist base camp between Israel and Egypt. In northern Lebanon, Islamic jihadists are battling the army for control of a Palestinian refugee camp. Scores are dead. On Wednesday, a seventh parliamentarian was assassinated with his son in a Beirut car bomb...

I came to Washington DC the first time in 1972 to work in the office of a liberal Democrat Ohio Congressman. I took away from that experience my first taste of the unwritten rules governing good conduct and decorum that most groups stick to, from your local Elks Club to the U.S. Senate. Most call it the culture or the ethos the organization lives by. Unwritten rules exist to help an organization or team function harmoniously despite severe difference. For decades, even at the lowest moments of despair and disharmony, the Senate and in fact the United States of America,...

Or does he just not know what is actually going on in that country? Here’s an excerpt from a press release Reid issued on Monday: The President's troop escalation is now complete, yet a New York Times article this morning reports that security goals are far, far short of the military's hopes, with just one-third of Baghdad neighborhoods in some semblance of order. You gotta love how Reid declares it “the President’s troop escalation,” as though he himself didn’t vote in favor of appointing General Petraeus, the architect of the surge strategy, to run operations in Iraq. But petty, misleading...

President George W. Bush still has to learn to say "the buck stops here" when it comes to presidential decisions. The "decider" and commander-in-chief seems to be trying to pass the buck, particularly if the war in Iraq implodes and he has to bring troops home from his disastrous invasion of Iraq. The president is counting on Gen. David Petraeus -- the top military commander in Iraq -- and Iraqi President Nouri al-Maliki to take the fall if his troop "surge" fails. Bush is a long way from that mirage, even with an expected Pentagon buildup of U.S. troops to...