OBAMA SHOVES PETRAEUS TO THE BACK OF THE BUS

NYTIMES:

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the face of the Iraq troop surge and a favorite of former President George W. Bush, spoke up or was called upon by President Obama “several times” during the big Afghanistan strategy session in the Situation Room last week, one participant says, and will be back for two more meetings this week.

But the general’s closest associates say that underneath the surface of good relations, the celebrity commander faces a new reality in Mr. Obama’s White House: He is still at the table, but in a very different seat.

No longer does the man who oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have one of the biggest voices at National Security Council meetings, as he did when Mr. Bush gave him 20 minutes during hourlong weekly sessions to present his views in live video feeds from Baghdad. No longer is the general, with the Capitol Hill contacts and web of e-mail relationships throughout Washington’s journalism establishment, testifying in media explosions before Congress, as he did in September 2007, when he gave 34 interviews in three days.

... What is clear is that General Petraeus’s relationship with Mr. Obama is nothing like his bond with Mr. Bush, who went mountain biking with the general in Washington last fall, or with Mr. Obama’s opponent in the 2008 presidential campaign, Senator John McCain of Arizona, whose aides briefly floated the general’s name last year as a possible running mate.

By then the general had been talked about as a potential presidential candidate himself, which still worries some political aides at the White House.

But not Mr. Obama, at least according to one of his top advisers. “The president’s not thinking that way, and the vice president’s not thinking that way,” said Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff. “The president values his insights in helping to turn around an eight-year-old war that has been neglected.”

OBAMA IS DISCARDING THE MAN WHO DESIGNED AND RAN THE SURGE WHICH WON IRAQ TO LISTEN PEOPLE WHO SAID THE SURGE WOULD FAIL.

THIS IS IDIOTIC - OR A STEALTH WAY TO DELIBERATELY FAIL.

IF OBAMA REALLY WAS A CRYPTO-MUSLIM AND RADICAL LEFTIST WHO WANTED THE USA TO FAIL WOULD HE DOPING ANYTHING DIFFERENTLY?

NOPE.

Update: scooped Gateway by a day.