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September 11, 2007

Confused Americans for Truth - In Which I Analyze the Petraeus Testimony Without Being Influenced by the Facts

by Ferdinand T Cat

I've been wandering about the house for almost a full day now trying to get a handle on General Petraeus's testimony before Congress, which is now in its second day. In doing so, I've tried very hard not to be swayed by the content of the testimony, because I'm convinced that Petraeus's statements aren't going to make an iota of difference to anybody involved in this debate.

For a skeptic like me, this is especially difficult. My job is to figure out the difference between the news and the truth, and cutting the actual truth out of the equation makes that pretty darn difficult. The problem, however, is that even in a world where information travels at the speed of light—seven times around the globe in one second—we have no idea what's really going on in Iraq. The news coverage is anecdotal at best, like this thing from the MSNBC blog, which explains why the Petraeus testimony absolutely has to be discounted, or this post from Iraq the Model, about a highway that used to be too dangerous to drive.

To conservatives, this fuzzy understanding is not a very big problem. The question we ask is not how is it going, but what do we need to do to win. The anecdotes are just blips on the radar. To the anti-war movement, however, the lack of reliable data is disastrous. To justify letting the terrorists win, they have to prove that America is losing. This leads to long diatribes about which anecdotes have the ring of truth and which are clearly self-serving lies engineered by neo-conservative mastermind Karl Rove. The mystery here is not why they're cooking the books to favor the terrorists, but why the public hasn't noticed this painfully obvious pattern.

So General Petraeus is delivering his report, which will have absolutely no effect on anything, and then he will go back and try to win this thing before Congress figures out a way to definitively lose it. It's all we can hope for from the guy, and my only concern is that he didn't waste a lot of time figuring out what to say. After all, in the grand scheme of things, his testimony is just another blip on the radar.

Respectfully submitted,

Ferdinand T. Cat

rackposted to Outside the Beltway, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, Perri Nelson's Website, Rosemary's Thoughts, DeMediacratic Nation, Big Dog's Weblog, Adam's Blog, Right Truth, Inside the Northwest Territory, The Populist, DragonLady's World, Shadowscope, Nuke's News & Views, Webloggin, Leaning Straight Up, The Bullwinkle Blog, The Amboy Times, Conservative Thoughts, Pursuing Holiness, Diary of the Mad Pigeon, third world county, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, The World According to Carl, Blue Star Chronicles, Pirate's Cove, Planck's Constant, CommonSenseAmerica, Republican National Convention Blog, High Desert Wanderer, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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» General Petraeus: A Man For All Reasons from A Few Shiny Pebbles
In “Petraeus rebuffs 'war criminal' critics”, on Breitbart.com, I read: The US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, hit back Wednesday at anti-war critics who accused him of being a White House stooge during an emotive two days of testimony... [Read More]

Tracked on September 12, 2007 4:46 PM

Comments

Ferdinand, you are probably the wisest cat I know. I'm wondering if you would mind coming for a visit.
The cats that I've been staffing for could probably learn a thing or two from you.


Posted by: Perri Nelson at September 11, 2007 4:05 PM

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