Sept 10-07
Tom Lantos, who is co-chairing the committee (he’s from California) told Petraeus (I’m going to have to paraphrase this) that he knows — he, Lantos, and all Congress knows — that Petraeus and Crocker have been sent up there to convince the Congress and the American people that victory is at hand. Lantos says, “I don’t buy it.” Who the hell is Tom Lantos? This is before the Petraeus report has been made public. He told General Petraeus: We’re not going to believe a damn word you say here, General. He did say, by the way, “nothing personal.” We know it’s the Bush administration.
I’m paraphrasing here. We know you’ve been sent up here to lie. It’s what he said! You’ve been sent up here to try to convince us that victory is at hand. “I don’t buy it,” said Congressman Lantos, and I will guarantee you when this is all over, you know where the media is going to go? They’ll go to Lantos. “It was like a very courageous thing you said to General Petraeus. What’s your thought on this?” He’ll repeat it and they’ll marvel and they’ll go to Petraeus, “What do you think about what Lantos said?” They won’t ask Petraeus about what he said. If they do, it will be under the auspices of, “Is this really what you think, or is this what Bush told you to say?”
sorry for this kinda being a few days old…, I missed it, then when I found out about it… I was outraged! so… hence this post.
…THEN at the hearing…
LANTOS: The fact remains, gentlemen, that the administration has sent you here today to convince the members of these two committees and the Congress that victory is at hand. With all due respect to you, I must say: I don’t buy it.
And he went on to talk about how “The fact remains, the administration has sent you here today to convince the members of these two committees…”
Can I give you the lowdown on what the law is here? By the way, who writes the laws in this country? People like Tom Lantos, members of the United States Congress. The report that General Petraeus might deliver, if these windbags could ever shut up, was required by the US Congress, and the words in the law say, “The president shall present to Congress” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, the report on the surge, or whatever they’re calling it officially.
Well, the Democrats know this. They wrote the law. But when the surge was reported as working, when there was progress, immense progress, to be reported, the Democrats started changing tune, and they came out with this notion among many other things, that the president is writing a report. “The president’s writing the report! It’s the Bush report! It’s the Bush report!”
The president is required to present it, and Petraeus and Crocker originally were not going to appear in public testimony. The Democrats howled and screamed so the administration said, “Okay, we’ll send ’em up there, if that’s what you want.”
I just remembered who Tom Lantos’s military advisor is. It would be Bashar al-Assad. The last time he went on a foreign trip it was with Nancy Pelosi to Syria. Remember that trip? Hunter responded to Tom Lantos. This is how he did it…
HUNTER: The last week or so has been spent attacking your credibility with major attacks here in the United States, and some of them emanating from right here, saying essentially that your testimony is going to be — and I quote my friend from California, Mr. Lantos, “Not your testimony, but testimony which is written by, ‘political operatives.‘”
In fact, I know that’s not the case. I haven’t reviewed your testimony, but I know this: duty, honor, country. Those are the principles by which our great officers in the United States Army and the other services derive their careers and base their careers on. It’s an outrage that we spent the last week prepping the ground, bashing the credibility of a general officer whose trademark is integrity, who was unanimously supported by the US Senate.
Mr. Chairman, let’s — let’s lead off this hearing with this stipulation. That the gentlemen who are appearing before us, and particularly General Petraeus, whose credibility has been attacked all week long by the left in this country, represents the very best in military tradition, that he’s going to testify with an independent, candid view, and he’s going to give us the one thing we ask of all of our military officers, and that’s a candid, independent assessment given with integrity in the same tradition of MacArthur and Eisenhower and Schwarzkopf.
LOL… That had to make ’em mad. Hunter said let’s start with the stipulation these guys are honorable. Can we start with that? He didn’t say this, but if they prove they’re not honorable, we’ll go there, but let’s not start with the assumption that they’re liars. Let’s not start with the assumption that they’re just a bunch of puppets. But that’s exactly where the Democrats want to start. I think one of the reasons for this is this conference call that Michael Lerner has made public between Democrats and anti-war activists.
He says, “Right now we would write the story of this Congress as profiles in cowardice. There’s a great deal of frustration with the Democrats in the Congress, a sense almost of betrayal.” By the way, you could sense that in Osama Bin Laden’s tape. Osama Bin Laden was frustrated last week with the Democrats.
Did you notice, by the way, that after Bin Laden’s tape came out, the Democrats ramped it up? That’s when they started hitting Petraeus even harder. We know who they’re responding to. Look, it is not extreme to say that in a question of allies here, the Democrat Party is much closer to Osama Bin LadenBin Laden comes out and than the American people in terms of what they want. Kerry was asked a question by George Stephanopoulos about it.
Bin Laden says, “You’re not doing your job right,” and Kerry says, “Well, we don’t have 60 votes, George.”
He actually responded to it! He actually responded to it from a defensive posture, upset that Bin Laden was upset with him, perhaps.
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