Sorry about the shouting, but I just HAD to get that out of my system...
Got in the car to run a couple of errands. Turned on the radio, tuned to the news station. Got some guy with a furrin accent reading a prepared statement. Tried to figure out who he was, and who'd written the prepared statement - from his manner of speaking, he obviously hadn't written it himself, nor had he read through it before reading it out loud on the radio.
OK, the POV of the author of the statement was American. Defeatist. Historically ignorant, too: "we shouldn't be working with the sheiks in Anbar, because we supported the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan and thus paved the way for the Taliban" (paraphrased). Oh, here's a clue: he addresses Gen. Petraeus in the second person.
Finally break for context: the guy reading the statement was Tom Lantos, opening the Petraeus hearing. Really, now: this isn't an occasion for speechifying by Congresscritters! Call the General all the way back from Iraq to harangue him? Why not just put a cardboard cutout of the General up there, and harangue that?
After that speech, it's darn sure Lantos, at least, won't be paying attention to a word Petraeus says. Or, maybe, he'll be picking out any words that support his position, and ignoring (or simply not hearing) the rest. "My mind is made up; don't confuse me with the facts!"
First errand complete; radio comes back on. Petraeus is speaking. This guy is on the ball, and citing specific facts. One might hope the Congresscritters would take advantage of this specificity to do some fact-checking, but I doubt they have either the inclination or the competence to do so. They'll just believe or disbelieve them, according to what they already believed, or to what's politically expedient.
Petraeus comes across as a leader. I probably wouldn't follow him into Hell, but that's me; I would follow him into a moderate-risk situation. Lantos, on the other hand, I wouldn't follow to a day at the beach.
Second errand complete. Now some other guy is speechifying. From the content, I'm guessing this is Ambassador Crocker. Sounds like a politician. Oh, and he used "enormity" to mean "great magnitude." I guess that's crept into the dictionaries these days, but the primary meaning is still "great wickedness." This distracts me from his continuing oratory.
Any time I hear Congresscritters on the radio, I'm inspired to a deep and abiding contempt of Congress. Especially when it's the ones with safe districts and vast seniority... the ones who have been living in their bubbles for decades, and, by virtue of never facing contested elections, have acquired great power within their respective parties, and are thus running the show.
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