Democrats Grasping At Straws

There are sources saying that General Petraeus wants no troop cuts before April 2008. Already there are some prominent Democrats, namely Harry Reid, who are trying to discredit General Petraeus in a pathetic attempt to get their own way:

Also on Friday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid got personal, questioning Petraeus' credibility:

"He's made a number of statements over the years that have not proved to be factual," Reid said. "I have every belief that this good man, Gen. Petraeus, will give us what he feels is the right thing to do in the report that is now not his report. It's President Bush's report."

A Senate Republican leadership aide responded to the Democrats' broadsides. "My guess is that it's an attempt to discredit the witness," the aide said.

"The problem is Petraeus' approval rating is about four times higher than the Democrat Congress."

You haven't even seen the report Reid and now you're already trying to discredit a four star general? You say he's lied in the past, well put forth the evidence that he has. If you can't do that, then you yourself are being shown to be a liar and worst, a manipulator. No one has seen the report, but yet, they want to try to discredit the man putting together the report. That's partisan politics in the worst way.

There's also reports in the New York Time of Petraeus wanting to pull out 4,000 troops to "assuage critics in Congress" which has already been discredited.

"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," Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois told a Washington think tank.

Durbin, a war critic, said for a long period of time, he has e-mailed civilian employees who were gathering data for the report and writing draft portions of the findings.

"Some of them I correspond with almost on a daily basis. And when they sent a discouraging report about things that were happening in Baghdad, they were reminded by their superiors that's unacceptable, we need a positive report. They were sent back for editing changes. Now that's a fact," Durbin said.

A senior administration official called Durbin's charges "absurd" and pledged that the report will have "accurate data."

Ok Durbin, fair enough, you make an accusation, back it up with confirmation from someone or some substantial proof. When I point out hypocrisy, corruption, or outright lies, I post where my sources are and who confirmed them. You aren't doing that. You're trying to manipulate people into voting your way.

In recent days, congressional Democrats have tried to minimize the impact of testimony that could undermine their ability to convince wavering Republicans to vote for troop withdrawals.

Of course they are. They know they're getting slaughtered in the public opinion polls and they need to end the Iraq war yesterday. Since the only way to do that is to convince some Republicans to see things their way, any positive notes from Iraq will make that job almost impossible.

But in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Friday, David Walker, the head of the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office, also questioned how those statistics were compiled.

He said he is "not comfortable" with the methodology used to count the death toll from sectarian violence. Specifically, if a body is found with a gunshot in the front of the head, the death is classified as an ordinary crime. But if the bullet is in the back of the head, the death is considered sectarian violence, according to the GAO.

Walker said he would "fully expect" such a methodology to reflect a reduction in sectarian violence.

He said those statistics are kept by the Multi-National Force-Iraq, which Petraeus commands. Walker said the methodology details are classified and urged senators to push for the information to be declassified.

While I'm not exactly ok with them declassifying it, I am ok with them sharing the methodology with Walker. If you tell the entire world how you conducted your statistics, insurgents will change them to make things worse then they are.

Plus, how do you compile statistics like this that distinguishes between a crime and insurgents violence? You certainly don't want to count two people who are arguing and one kills the other as part of the insurgency. Regardless, watch for the gloves to come off tomorrow as General Petraeus' report comes out.

Travis
travis@rightwinglunatic.com