As General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker begin day two of their Capitol Hill testimony, bloggers are wrapping up the buzz from yesterday’s hearings with the Senate Armed Forces and Foreign Relations committees. Check out the Lede’s concise liveblog of the hearings (and Michelle Malkin’s for a right-wing take). In sum, Petraeus said that security in Iraq is better than it was in September, thanks to the surge in both Coalition and Iraqi forces, and he suggested that we “pause” troop withdrawals. (Goldfarb posted key points from both Petraeus’s and Crocker’s testimonies.) But of course, many lefty bloggers refused to listen. At Hot Air, Ed Morrissey provides details on the status of Iraq that much of the media missed. Petraeus and Crocker faced questioning from all three presidential candidates yesterday. John McCain was up first, and clearly listened to the testimony, as he noted that it now “is possible to talk with real hope and optimism about the future of Iraq, and the outcome of our efforts there.” Of course, much of the left-wing bloggers jumped on his supposed gaffe–he mistakenly said that al Qaeda is Sunni, but quickly corrected it to Shiite. But unfortunately for Petraeus and Crocker (and the country), the Democrats didn’t seem to listen to the testimony, say right-wing bloggers. Prior to the testimony, Power Line’s John Hinderaker noted that “the Democrats didn’t actually wait to hear from Petraeus and Crocker before denouncing what they are expected to say; they have been all over the media for the last week, arguing that the surge is a failure, and anything Petraeus and Crocker might say to the contrary should be disregarded.” And TWS contributing editor John Podhoretz sums up the Democrats’ questioning: “The line of the day, as Democratic Senators grilled General Petraeus, was that he was presiding over a fight with ‘no exit strategy.’ This is a telling turn of phrase, and a meaningful one. Obviously, a nation doesn’t need an ‘exit strategy’ when it fights a war it wins; the exit strategy in such a war is victory.” Hillary “Willing Suspension of Disbelief” Clinton questioned the two mid-day. At Contentions, Jennifer Rubin says, “McCain tries to get as much as he can on the record, while Clinton tries to keep mum.” Hinderaker adds, “Hillary consumed most of her allotted time by delivering a speech rather than asking questions. Her speech was notable for its defensiveness and for the fact that it ignored the hours of testimony that went before….Clinton didn’t call General Petraeus a liar this time. That in itself may signify that the political dynamic on Iraq has changed.” Obama’s testimony was a farce. Yesterday’s testimony was incredibly important, yet Peter Wehner explains the day: “What we’re getting, and not only from Senators critical of the war, is posturing. Many Senators appear far more interested in making speeches than they do in asking pertinent questions. Iraq is a fluid situation-yet so many political figures have made up their mind. They act as if things are frozen in amber, as if a snapshot in time is a permanent state of things. And they seem wholly uninterested in increasing their understanding of the facts on the ground-especially if the facts on the ground demonstrate progress.”
