For those of you that are unaware, I live in Reno, Nevada. One of my state senators is none other than the Senate Majority Leader, one Senator Harry Reid. In fact, he spoke at my high school many years ago. It was somewhat fascinating at the time. Unfortunately, he’s recently done a wonderful job of making a rather poor name of himself. His approval rating in the US is a whopping 19%. Dennis Miller is making fun of him. He announced that the Iraq war is lost in April, right around the time that General Petraus was about to begin the surge. This doesn’t include the various corruption scandals that his name seems to get attached to like glue, including fishy land dealings.

Now this (courtesy of the Washington Post):

Sen. Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) charged that Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, who took command in Iraq four months ago, “isn’t in touch with what’s going on in Baghdad.” He also indicated that he thinks Petraeus has not been sufficiently open in his testimony to Congress. Noting that Petraeus, who is now on his third tour of duty in Iraq, oversaw the training of Iraqi troops during his second stint there, Reid said: “He told us it was going great; as we’ve looked back, it didn’t go so well.”

Reid seemed most provoked by an article in yesterday’s edition of USA Today, which quoted the general as saying that he sees “astonishing signs of normalcy” in the Iraqi capital. “I’m talking about professional soccer leagues with real grass field stadiums, several amusement parks — big ones, markets that are very vibrant,” Petraeus told the newspaper.

The general’s comments came on the same day that the Pentagon released to Congress a quarterly report on security in Iraq. It said that the three-month-old U.S. counteroffensive in Baghdad has not curtailed overall violence in the country but has instead shifted it from inside the Iraqi capital to places around it.

So, let’s recap:

Reid is not in Baghdad. Gen. Petraus, I’m assuming, is, at least from time to time. Petraus mentions that things are actually starting to look good in Baghdad, which is actually consistent with the report released to Congress that says that, in Baghdad, violence is down. Reid says that Petraus is not in touch with Baghdad.

Maybe I’m being a little pedantic here, but it looks like Reid isn’t in touch with the report that’s upsetting him, much less Baghdad. Furthermore, the entire point of the surge was to get the violence out of Baghdad so Iraq would have a capital to govern from. I also have to imagine that fighting in the suburbs is a heck of a lot easier to do than fighting in the middle of an urban center, especially when it’s your side that actually cares about collateral damage. So, from where I’m sitting, I’d say that, though things definitely need improvement, they’re trending in the right direction. Besides, Petraus has been on the job for four months. It takes a little longer than that to fix five years worth of mistakes.

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