Found on web- Obama, Biden, and Hillary Clinton -turn their backs (on General Petraeus)

Last updated September 26, 2008 12:39 p.m. PT

Thank you, Gen. Petraeus, for a job well done
JONATHAN GURWITZ

Gen. David Petraeus left Iraq last week, handing over command of the Multi-National Force to Gen. Ray Odierno.

With storms of the meteorological and financial sort dominating headlines, you had to search to find news of the departing commander or the turnaround he led.
Even without the storms, it's doubtful that Petraeus would have made the front page. In the international edition of America's newspaper of record, the handover in Iraq appeared on page 11. What a difference a year makes.

Last September, talk shows and newspapers buzzed as Petraeus went to Capitol Hill to defend his report that U.S. troops were making significant strides in bringing security to Iraq.
On "Meet the Press," Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., now his party's vice presidential nominee, said Petraeus was "dead flat wrong."

In a Senate hearing, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., now his party's presidential candidate, trivialized Petraeus' claims of progress as "changing the definition of success" and called for "an immediate removal of our troops from Iraq's civil war."

Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., delivered the most noteworthy insult, telling Petraeus his report required "the willing suspension of disbelief." And the left wing anti-war group MoveOn placed its infamous "General Betray Us" ad in the New York Times claiming Petraeus was "cooking the books for the White House."

Petraeus, as it turns out, was right. You no longer hear much talk about the United States being mired in an unwinnable civil war, or about an immediate -- "not six months from now," Obama emphasized -- withdrawal.

Last week, Petraeus left Iraq a far better place than when he assumed command. And last week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., killed a resolution that would have commended him and American military personnel for their service.
At the change-of-command ceremony in Baghdad, Petraeus thanked his troops for altering the situation in Iraq from "hard but not hopeless" into "still hard but hopeful." Very few people who should have done so thanked Petraeus and the men and women who served under him for a job well done.
Jonathan Gurwitz is a columnist for the San Antonio Express-News;