Petraeus video bonanza (UPDATED).
Talking Points Memo has helpfully posted a slew of videos related to the general and his report. Here are a few worth watching.
First up, a snippet from Petraeus’s exclusive interview with that bastion of fairminded journalism, Fox News. Take it away, Brit…
Did you catch that? Hume asked Petraeus whether the war in Iraq isn’t really a war against Al Qaeda, and the general said that it’s a war with Al Qaeda and its “affiliates,” which isn’t especially true.
Next, here’s a clip of Petraeus saying that he doesn’t know whether the war in Iraq is making the United States “safer.”
Impressively candid, right? Not so fast. Given the opportunity to rethink his answer, Petraeus produced the following clarification.
Ready for that salt lick yet?
Update: I’m going to keep updating this thread as new videos come to my attention. In today’s presser, Tony Snow interprets General Petraeus’s testimony on troop withdrawal by inverting it:
Sen Warner is trying to help him make the Bush/Rumsfeld continued lie about Iraq while Sen Bayh is trying to see what his answer will be. So this is the truthful answer, now here is the political answer.
This is really wonderful juxtapositions. It sets compactly in front of us the inconsistency of the words. Your next update has to be Joe Klein’s reporting on Matthew’s show how the General was called by the White House during the break and he changed his tune by reverting to the subject when asked a different question. It is the transparency of good reporting showing obvious intent to be opaque and deceptive.