Petraeus Report

I see General Petraeus is due to submit his report to Congress. It wouldn't particularly surprise me if it said "My commanding officer is a genius! A military genius!" I'm always just a little skeptical of "independent" reports that come out of the military. "This aint a democracy, this is the ARMY," they always shout, and it's for that very reason that I question just how independent any such report could really be. (A quick way to solve it might be to make USAF generals report on Army doings, and vice versa. It might not lead to independent reports, but the swelling profusion of insulting nicknames would be amusing.)

But really, why doesn't Congress ever ask me to compile weighty reports? I could come in with my halfway passable command of Pentagonese, some PowerPoint slides, and a pitcher of water, and offer all sorts of interesting commentary on the Cinnabun Surge, or the results of Operation Taco Bell, or (one of my favorites) the Macaroni Grill Through History. ("Julius never ate at the Macaroni Grill. Neither did Napoleon. That concludes my presentation. Thank you.") I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman, but I can't speak about Pizza Hut yet; we need another $1.5 million to give the cheesy bread adequate study. No sir, "Pizza Pizza" is from Little Caesar's. You're welcome, sir.

And when it comes to Iraq, does one ill-informed report make much more sense than any other? Killings are up! No, they're down! IEDs are up! No, they're down! The morgue is full! No, the morgue is empty. We can't even agree on the statistics, fer cryin' out loud!

So here's my weighty Iraq report:

It sucks over there! Thank you, Mr. Chairman.