Actually, I’m not sure that’s a bad approach from a strictly political perspective: Blame the invasion for creating the mess, praise Petraeus for cleaning up the mess, and then imply we’ve made so much progress we can leave. I had a similar thought about McCain’s comment about normalcy in Iraq. It invites the George Aiken-style response, “Great! So let’s get out.”
Obviously, McCain and Petraeus would then argue that the progress being conceded was a result of the our military presence and a preciptious withdrawal — is there any other kind? — would jeopardize that progress. But it might be better than vacilating between the Democrats’ overly combative posture the first time Petraeus testified and their muted performance today.
