Don't Promise The Moon

The General executed a brilliant strategic maneuver yesterday by sending a letter to the troops. In laying out his views, he set the theme for comparison between his own words and the official report next week which liberals and Democrats are suggesting will be skewed by the Bush administration.

This will go a long way toward silencing many anti-war critics who pretended to be shocked that the White House would prepare the final report. But of course, they'll find something to criticize him about, anyway.

Petraeus' letter is clearly, not simply "happy talk and failure," as some Petraeus detractors suggest.

Doing the work for Democrats, the left wing blogosphere has already created a wish-list of questions to ask Petraeus. Interesting how their statistics are skewed, with no hints of progress, as even The New York Times admits there are good things going on in Iraq (by the numbers).

It's probably too late, since:

After a month-long vacation, Democrats returned to the nation’s capital this week, an army in disarray. They left in August confident that Republicans would go home, get chewed out about the war, and raise the white flag. Instead, the Surge worked and the Democrats are losing it.

(H/T Instapundit)

Well, when they have articulate leaders like this, is it any wonder?:

“I have every belief that this good man, General Petraeus, will give us what he feels is the right thing to do in this report, that is now not his report,” said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader. “It’s President Bush’s report. President Bush took final ownership of this when he landed in Anbar Province just a few days ago.”

Not to mention Reid is lying, since he did, after all, call Petraeus incompetent and "out of touch." By the way, didn't Reid know that the White House would write the report when he signed the legislation?

At the very least, we should draw some lessons from Tet, as Victor Davis Hanson suggests. (i.e., Don't promise the moon).

And Petraeus didn't.