Well, Hot Lunch is at least proving that he has the characteristic leftist penchant for pathological projection in spades, even if clear writing isn’t exactly his forte. I’d guess he has a bright future ahead of him as an MSNBC anchor (if he has decent hygiene and weighs less than 350 lbs.) or as an Obama speechwriter (if not).
As for Petraeus, it may well be that he was speaking of Hezbollah’s stated excuses for existence, and only that, as transparently false as those excuses are. It would be easy to use a quote like that to make it look like Petraeus actually believes them.
There’s also the possibility that Petraeus has to keep the new boss in mind. Bush allowed generals to trash him and his policies. Obama will not only not allow anything like that, he also, we can be reasonably sure, expects top military leaders to sound off in positive expressions of praise for his policy preferences.
Generals have been all too willing in recent years to voice their own opinions in political matters. Colin Powell–a much less talented leader than Gen. Petraeus–is the perfect example. Petraeus serves under a Commander in Chief who considers Petraeus’ service to be to [i]him[/i], and not the country. Powell didn’t have that excuse.
