Betray-Us to Please-Save-Us

Remember a couple of years ago when the Left fell all over themselves to criticize General David Petraeus before he testified before Congress about the Iraq War? MoveOn.org even put out a full page ad in the New York Times calling him "General Betray-Us" because they disagreed with the war in Iraq and President George W. Bush's actions to get into it. Petraeus showed great restraint in dealing with pinheads like Hillary Clinton who indirectly accused the General of lying to the American people.

Now, in the wake of the General McChrystal situation, who does the Left turn to? General Petraeus.

Interesting pick, to be sure. After the Left hounded Petraeus, it has to be sweet vindication for him to be chosen to pick up the pieces and push ahead. In Petraeus, the Obama Administration will get a competent leader who will do what he's told and suck up any criticism, warranted or otherwise. He should serve the President well, just as he served President Bush.

But there's a part of me that isn't sure that the pick wasn't more political than practical. With the McChrystal situation adding to Obama's current mountain of woes, he needed someone who could help solidify at least some of his waning influence and that people wouldn't attack so readily. And, much to the Left's chagrin, people actually like Petraeus.

But here's the thing that the Left really can't stand to admit: Obama's copying George W. Bush again on the war. Time and time again, Obama has run to the Bush strategy when dealing with war matters, and after criticizing Bush during the campaign for doing the same things. Instead of promoting change, Obama's war strategy has been the status quo. The Left knows this and it eats them up inside because they supported Obama's change and bashed Bush's status quo. Now that the two have merged yet again, they may have to eat their "Betray-Us" words.

Ultimately, time will tell whether the Petraeus pick was for the purposes of winning the war in Afghanistan or winning the PR war at home. For the sake of the troops, let's hope it's the former.