Lapdog Cornyn Licks All Over Petraeus With His Big, Slobbery Tongue

The junior Senator from Texas, John Cornyn, had his turn today to question General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker at the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

Cornyn is often called Bush's lapdog, and the slobber was certainly flowing today.

He started off with praise and admiration for Petraeus and Crocker and expressed SHOCK! at an anti-Petraeus Move On ad - and held it up for all to see - saying he had (HYPERBOLE ALERT) never witnessed a more reprehensible slander of a public servant. He asked that all members of the committee condemn this ad and restate confidence in General Betray Us (that ain't gonna happen).

Cornyn also said (HYPERBOLE ALERT) that this is the first case he has ever seen while he has been in the Senate of shooting the messenger for bringing good news. He praised Petraeus for "talking to people in the neighborhood" - Syria, Iran and others. He also praised him for calling for (HYPERBOLE ALERT) "significant cuts" in troops, something "people in this room" have been calling for. (Way more people than just the people "in this room" have been calling for significant cuts, and Petraeus' call for a draw down to pre-surge force levels isn't the significant draw down we are looking for.)

What kind of nonsense is this from Cornyn: "this is a strange time we find ourselves in." Whatever.

It got interesting when Cornyn asked Crocker "what are the consequences of failure?", particularly in terms of a humanitarian crisis.

Crocker answers that there there has already been a significant humanitarian crisis with 2 million people who've left the country and that many inside Iraq who are displaced, and that it is already a tragic situation. He says sectarian violence is the engine of displacement and that many areas have stabilized due to U.S. efforts (cough: geez, I guess he thinks we don't realize that our "liberating" troop presence brought all this sectarian violence on in the first place.)

Cornyn then made a reference to Darfur, where he says there have been 400,000 killed in ethnic cleansing (did we know Cornyn had such concern about Darfur??) and asks if it could get this bad or worse - hundreds of thousands or millions killed in Iraq - if the U.S. pulls out.

Crocker's answer is interesting. He said he would be very concerned about the U.S. backing away and signaling that there would not be a second surge in Iraq and elsewhere. The results could be truly catastrophic - although he doesn't know that would be so, nor is he saying that would be so. But, he predicts that neighboring states would go in and cause a meltdown in Iraq.

Did we know that a second surge is being considered? So, the draw down to pre-surge levels - is that just a precursor to Bush asking for a second surge? And, the rumors/information we see on blogs about the U.S. attacking Iran - I think that is being more than hinted at here.