Petraeus Testimony Offers Fodder for All

There was something for everybody at today's congressional hearing in which Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker delivered their long-awaited assessment of the "surge" strategy in Iraq.

There was good news. Petraeus, using a variety of charts and graphs, projected that 30,000 troops could possibly come home by next summer, bringing the number of U.S. forces in the country down to pre-"surge" levels.

But for those hoping to make a quick exit, there was other, more sobering news. Crocker's testimony suggested that more work needs to be done.

"In my judgment, the cumulative trajectory of political, economic and diplomatic developments in Iraq is upwards, although the slope of that line is not steep," Crocker said.

And then there was drama. The general's remarks were interspersed with jeers coming from a collection of antiwar protesters in the audience who, one by one, were kicked out of the hearing. After one screeching woman was hauled off by guards, Rep. Ike Skelton, the committee chair, on whose choice words the News Blog reported earlier, started threatening the protesters with criminal charges. A video of the earlier commentary (which contains some profanity) was uploaded onto YouTube almost immediately after the incident.

As the Iraq debate continues to rage in Congress for the rest of the week, today's testimony provided partisan bloggers with plenty of fodder. Left-leaning bloggers portrayed Petraeus as a puppet of the Bush administration in light of his mostly optimistic testimony. (The general refuted such attacks with a disclaimer at the beginning of his testimony: "Although I have briefed my assessment and recommendations to my chain of command, I wrote this testimony myself," he said. "It has not been cleared by, nor shared with, anyone in the Pentagon, the White House, or Congress.")

On the right, there was the ongoing chorus of bloggers gloating in "I told you so's."

—Nikki Schwab