Between Iraq and a Hard Place

That's the title of a Politico piece on the dilemma facing Democrats as somehow they much undermine the credibility of Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker without criticizing our troops:

With Army Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker set to testify to Congress about the war in Iraq Monday, Democrats face a touchy political problem -- how do you attack what Petraeus and Crocker are saying without attacking them personally?

And further, can you do that without looking like you’re dissing the 170,000 U.S. troops in Iraq?

Petraeus, who began his military career in 1970 as a freshman at West Point, was unanimously approved by the Senate as the top U.S. commander in Iraq in late January, and he has years of positive press clippings to back up his outsized reputation.

In fact, recent internal Republican polling shows that a full three-quarters of Americans know who Petraeus is -- and he enjoys solid, if unspectacular, approval ratings of 36 percent favorable to 16 unfavorable unfavorable, according to GOP insiders.

The Senate didn’t even hold a roll-call vote on the well-respected Crocker’s nomination as U.S. ambassador to Iraq, instead approving it by voice vote on March 7. Crocker has served in Iraq previously -- as well as Pakistan, Lebanon, Kuwait, Iran and Syria -- since joining the foreign service in 1971.

So Democrats will have to walk a fine line -- they must undermine what Petraeus and Crocker are saying without looking like they are personally impugning either man.

“It is always dangerous to go after a general or ambassador,” acknowledged a top House Democratic leadership aide, “but things haven’t really changed in Iraq, and we need to demonstrate that to the American public.”

The fact is things in Iraq have really changed, but what hasn't changed is the Dem stubbornness to pursue a policy of failure. We now have Sen. Harry Reid claiming that Petraeus is a known liar, which sort of flies in the face of Reid's vote to confirm him. Where were these accusations when Petraeus went through the confirmation process?

I think the Dems are in for a tough couple of weeks. They're going to completely torch whatever credibility they had left on Iraq with their choice to ignore the changing situation on the ground and their insistence on surrender and failure. It will be fun to watch.