by publius
I'll be honest — I'm a bit frightened of David Petraeus's political and media savvy. This guy is good. I just watched him on Fox News and was very impressed with his answers on everything from Gitmo to torture to the ability of our legal system to try detainees. The video is here, but I've posted some excerpts from the rough transcript:
On closing Gitmo:
it. I oversee a region in which the existence of Gitmo has indeed been used by the enemy against us. We have not been without missteps or mistakes in our activities since 9/11.
On trying detainees in the US:
for. It's what we stand for and so indeed we need to embrace them and we
need to operationalize them in how we carry out what it is we're
doing on the battlefield and everywhere else. So one has to have some
faith I think in the legal system. One has to have a degree of
confidence that individuals that have conducted such extremist
activity would indeed be found guilty in our courts of law.
On opposing torture:
lays out how we treat detainees, how we interrogate them — those
techniques work. That's our experience in this business.
FOX NEWS: So is sending
this signal that we're not going to use these kind of techniques anymore . . . What kind
of impact does that have on people who do us harm in the in the field
that you operate in?
PETRAEUS: Well actually what I would ask is — does that not
take away from our enemies a tool which again they've beaten us around
the head and shoulders in the court of public opinion. When we have
taken steps that have violated the Geneva convention, we rightly have
been criticized. And so as we move forward I think it's important to . . . live our values, to live the agreements that we have made in the
international justice arena into practice.
Very smooth. Obviously, that's all good stuff. But I'm a little wary of relying too much on any argument that begins, "Well, I'm right because General Petraeus says X." Most obviously, he is a direct subordinate of Obama — just like he used to be a direct subordinate of Bush back when he was saying arguably unhelpful things about the surge. And more generally, I don't like the idea of relying heavily on the public statements of active military officials in political policy debates.
But I do think this passage shows Petraeus's political dexterity. He's someone who can go on Fox News and articulate Obama's political message, while simultaneously retaining the sympathies of all parties.
If he ever runs for anything, I hope it's not as a Republican.
On the other hand, it’ll be a huge improvement when Republicans start nominating people who are, smart, competent, and sane.
I don’t think we should be afraid to live our values. That’s what we’re fighting for.
Because nothing says ‘fighting for our values’ like invading and occupying a country on the basis of a transparently bogus threat based on lies.
Petraeus is a Republican. I think the Repubs are salivating at the idea of having him on the ticket in 2012
Does he remind you of General James Scott?
(Ob pop cult reference)
Does he want to bomb Social Security into the stone age, or would he rather drown it in the bathtub?
Might as well start asking these questions now.
I suspect his policy stances will be more nuanced. His public policy statement will probably be even more .. um… nuanced.
I don’t think people should assume that Petraeus is a Republican.
I don’t know if Petreaus is a Republican, but if he asks for their nomination, they’ll likely give it to him on a silver plater.
“I don’t think people should assume that Petraeus is a Republican.”
The whole exercise of thinking about the 2012 or 2016 elections is highly premature, but if we are going to do that anyway, then I don’t think people should assume that Obama (in 2012) or whoever the Dem nominee in 2016 is will be facing exclusively or even primarily GOP opposition. Petraeus may be a figure to be reckoned with from outside the GOP.
That holds for others as well – Jesse Ventura has been getting a lot of face time in the MSM recently with his opposition to Cheney on torture. Michael Bloomberg is quietly governing away in NY. There are almost twice as many Indy’s as self-identified Republican voters. I think the main non-Dem political leader 3-7 years from now may be an independent rather than a Republican.
Huh. Yet those dissatisfied with the Big Tent are told over and over that third parties are hopeless.
There’s a lot of structural difficulties for anyone, no matter how smooth, to overcome if they plan to run outside the two major parties.
Of course, with boatloads of money all difficulties seem to melt away.
Does he remind you of General James Scott?
Naah. There aren’t enough days left in May.
“Naah. There aren’t enough days left in May.”
I’ll miss a chance to say “ECOMCON.” Five times fast.
If the GOP proceeds on its current path, then Petraeus will be anathema to them. He publicly agrees with the N-word in the WH and blasphemes against Lord Chain-Eye.
Independent candidate? That might work (if Obama screws up royally). But for the GOP? Not as long as Rush has anything to say about it (although he officially resigned in favor of Powell recently as titttt-jullar head of the party recently).
Until and unless we see the usual unexpected circumstances of Obama’s Presidency, I would assume that Gen. Petraeus is smart enough to just do his job, and wait for 2016 to come around. At that point, you ought to be hoping that he does run as a Republican. It would be such a huge step towards sanity for our party, considering what we have been getting lately. And the country is better off with two sensible parties with a chance of power.