Petraeus Testimony: Hecklers and Faint Praise
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James Joyner | Monday, September 10, 2007 |
Gen. Petraeus goes before Congress – Yahoo! News
Gen. David Petraeus went before a deeply divided Congress on Monday, the commander of 165,000 troops heckled and criticized by anti-war critics before he began to speak. “Tell the truth, general,” shouted protesters as the four-star general made his way into the crowded hearing room. Petraeus did not respond, either to them or to the sole heckler who interrupted the session in its opening seconds.
“We’re not going to have any disturbances,” declared Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., who presided over the long-awaited hearing. “We’re going to ask that they be immediately escorted out. Do that now. Out they go,” he said.
A moderate midwesterner and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Skelton welcomed Petraeus to hearing with wistful words of praise. Petraeus is “almost certainly the right job for the job in Iraq, but he’s the right person three years too late and 250,000 troops short,” Skelton said.
Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker listened quietly at the witness table as Skelton called on them to “tell us why we should continue sending our young men and women to fight and die if the Iraqis won’t make the tough sacrifices leading to reconciliation.” “….Are we merely beating a dead horse?” the congressman asked.
Skelton’s tone is exactly right. Petraeus is a senior leader tasked by the elected policy-makers of the country with an incredibly difficult task.
Further, the questions he’s asking are the right ones. It’s Congress’ job to conduct oversight on our bureaucracies — of which the military is merely a special case — and the job of the senior executives of those departments to provide Congress with information and expert advice to help them make sound judgments. The process, though, should be conducted with a certain amount of dignity.
About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife and infant daughter.
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It’s Congress’ job to conduct oversight on our bureaucracies
And whose job is it to conduct oversight on Congress? They sure as hell don't listen to the US citizens which is apparent from the lowest approval rating in history.
They sure as hell don't listen to the US citizens which is apparent from the lowest approval rating in history.
We have elections for Congress the Tuesday after the first Monday in November in even numbered years. There's another chance for the citizens to make their voice heard fourteen months from now.
James is right about the election. Anyone who supports the disgusting ad placed in the NYT by Moveon.org should be voted out of office.
"“No one wants to call [Petraeus] a liar on national TV,” noted one Democratic senator, who spoke on the condition on anonymity. “The expectation is that the outside groups will do this for us.”"
As was pointed out by a commenter at another blog: "So much for any dissociation between MoveOn.org and the Democrat party. And as of this morning, none f the Democrats running for their party’s 2008 presidential nomination has publicly condemned the MoveOn/NYT"
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