General Petraeus and Bush's War

Digby quite correctly comments on the absurd hagiography that has surrounded General Petraeus' ascension of the Hill this week:

This fabulous intellectual has opened his mouth many times over the past few years, and in doing so has proved himself each time to be a hack for the Bush administration....I grew up in a military family and I'm not hostile to the services. But this phony reverence for The Man Called Petreaus is enough to make me sick. He may be a smart guy but he's as political as they come. In fact he's been pimping the white house marketing scheme almost non-stop for months, culminating in spending virtually the entire month of August glad-handing easily impressed congressmen like Brian Baird.

All this hand-wringing sanctimony about Petraeus today as if he's some sort of godlike figure who is beyond criticism is ridiculous. He's selling his war and that's his right. But when he spins and obfuscates and lies like a politician, he should expect to be treated like one.

At the same time, however, it seems as though Petreaus may have pissed off one fairly important constituency, namely, the Pentagon:

NEWSWEEK has learned that a separate internal report being prepared by a Pentagon working group will “differ substantially” from Petraeus’s recommendations, according to an official who is privy to the ongoing discussions but would speak about them only on condition of anonymity. An early version of the report, which is currently being drafted and is expected to be completed by the beginning of next year, will “recommend a very rapid reduction in American forces: as much as two-thirds of the existing force very quickly, while keeping the remainder there.”

As John Aravosis points out, somebody at the Pentagon is leaking this information to Newsweek, and they are doing it to make David Petaeus look bad. Bush set this guy up, as I pointed out in July, and it's a no win situation for Petraeus. He's being forced to own Bush's war, to a large extent. It is a war that the American public hates, and a President that the American public hates. There are undoubtedly folks at the Pentagon that will see his act as grandstanding and politicized, and that won't go unchallenged.

And count me down as skeptical that putting that monkey on the teevee on Thursday night to mangle some more English in defense of his failed strategy is going to sway anyone's opinion at this point. I agree with Atrios that the power of the "big megaphone" is lost at this point.