Americans are a people of extremes...especially when it comes to politics. Be it push button issues like stem cell research and gay marriage or the way political candidates paint themselves in broad, sweeping strokes, Washington inhabitants are hard-wired for stereotype.
When General Petraeus testified on the war in Iraq in both the House of Representatives and the Senate a couple weeks ago, he bore the brunt of this sort of thinking. Despite the veracity of Petreaus' concrete facts,
In a manner that a Washington Post editorial likened to the "days when soldiers and sailors were spat upon by large segments of anti-war activists in the '60s and early '70s," an angry bunch of senators lambasted the General for rubbing their agendas the wrong way. Petreaus' bias was called into question with comments like the one Sen. Dick Durbin spit out in Congressional Weekly:
"By carefully manipulating the statistics, the Bush-Petraeus report will try to persuade us that violence in Iraq is decreasing and thus the surge is working," --Durbin
I am wholeheartedly oppose the war...but to castigate someone for simply stating the facts is almost as deplorable as sending a country to war on false claims. Far too often, people confuse the war with the people fighitng the war.
But I suppose that's to be expected in Washington.
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I am not too familiar with Patraeus, although I am a bit more educated since the whole 'Patraeus Betray Us' ad went down. I discussed cheap punches Pataeus has recently been the victim of with my father, (a conservative conservative that sees no problem in getting his news from all mighty FOX) and it made me think about how professional Pataeus has been conducting himself. Again, I am not entirely enlightened on the history of Patraeus, but the man was given the big ol' task of fixing Iraq. Not just fixing Iraq, but fixing it under the tyrant Bush's rule. The man was given orders, how can you blame Patraeus for fulfilling his job function? I can understand having a problem with Patraeus if he was in fact 'cooking the books' as the moveon ad suggests.
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