One objection to the sight of David Petraeus testifying on Capitol Hill would be that it swelled congressional pride, as lawmakers dilated on the general's inferiority and impertinence. Last week's meetings were an appeal, by the American commander, of the majority's prejudgment on the Mesopotamian front. Petraeus sat across from legislators who did not believe in the Iraq from which he said he came — not only the mission, but the actual place.
In technicality, House and Senate proceedings were normal. Legislative prerogatives include scrutiny of military leaders and the executive office compelling them; assessing national objectives while contemplating resources and interests; and, yes, accompanying ostentation. Democrats excused a left-wing organization's obscure comparison of Petraeus to Benedict Arnold. What of it? — much worse was done to Abraham Lincoln and his men in uniform. The representative institution, and by consequence the public, is inured to disgrace. Comportment of the televised Mrs. and Messrs. was that defined by a sticker seen on an air hand-dryer twenty years ago, in a restroom along the highway: PUSH BUTTON FOR A MESSAGE FROM YOUR CONGRESS.
General Petraeus and the US ambassador to Iraq spoke confidently, with so few malleable sentences that the opposition had to fish abstractive directives to Baghdad from out of the White House in order to portray the campaign as yet awry — and then the two returned to the front, Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Hill bombast will cause problems, though, if it is taken seriously. The ammoniac self-consciousness of intellectuals is at work, columnists exaggerating a two-day attraction, some arguing to readers that Petraeus affirmed whatever followed their own persuasion. But the general did not appear before officeholders and cameras to sell newspapers and journals. He is waging war according to his dissertation and forte, counterinsurgency operations.
Personification of the campaign (reducing it to the essay of one four-star general) and a series of strategic and tactical adaptations (insisting on its figurative title) not only diminishes scale and complexity but confines Iraq to a property in Washington. Mere impressions of theater conditions are reified, actual circumstances over there — whether effected or supported by American troops, or the product of spontaneous Iraqi civility — are overlooked. We prefer to call politicians statesmen, but for now deliberations over an advance or retreat are conceded to those who care most about, in no strict order, grandstanding, expedients and re-election.