Hillary socks it to McCain at Iraq hearing

Today, General David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, along with Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, went to Capitol Hill to testify in hearings about the mess in Iraq.

Of course, the three presidential candidates took advantage of the PR opportunity.

As of this writing, I have not yet learned much about Barack Obama's performance at this hearing (which I assume was delivered with his usual wisdom and panache). So here I shall limit my comments to the other two.

John McCain, as expected, kissed war-mongering ass. He did his usual song and dance touting all the progress that he thinks we've been making in Iraq. He said that the Dems' calls for withdrawal "at the moment when [we] are succeeding" (huh?!) is a "failure of political and moral leadership."

So now this is the moment when we are succeeding in Iraq, Mr. McCain? Kind of like the declaration of "Mission Accomplished" back in May of 2003?

Whatever.

At least Hillary Clinton was more reality-oriented. Her response:

"I just want to respond to some of the statements and suggestions that have been made leading up to this hearing, and even during it, that it is irresponsible or demonstrates a lack of leadership to advocate withdrawing troops from Iraq in a responsible and carefully planned withdrawal. I fundamentally disagree. Rather, I think it could be fair to say that it might well be irresponsible to continue the policy that has not produced the results that have been promised time and time again."

Exactly. It reminds me of Albert Einstein's definition of insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Those of you who read this blog regularly know that Hillary is not my first choice for the Dem nomination. But in this case she was right on the mark.