Susan Estrich: The Democrats have a Petraeus Problem

They certainly do:

The Democrats, especially the Democrats running for president, have a problem, and his name is Petraeus.

In two days of hearings on Capitol Hill, he probably didn’t change any of the views held by members of Congress about the war in Iraq. But he almost certainly impressed a lot of people sitting at home by displaying all the traits Americans hope for in a military leader.

He was, to put it simply, good, a man who came across as brave, honorable, and true, and that’s the problem.

On Monday, the day Petraeus was to begin his testimony, in the great tradition of Washington politics, MoveOn.org blasted him before hearing a word of it. In a full page ad in the New York Times, that became the talk of Congress, the talk shows, and cable news (as it was supposed to), the liberal group accused Petraeus of "cooking the books," and charged that he was betraying the American peoples' trust by spinning the facts to support the White House.

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Primaries are won on the Left and Right. General elections are won in the middle. That’s the problem Petraeus poses for Democrats. If he could convince MoveOn, this would be easy. But he can’t and won’t. The danger is that he convinces folks in the middle that it would be irresponsible to simply pull out troops now, rather than trying to stabilize the situation further, that there is enough improvement both politically and militarily at the grass roots level to follow his schedule, rather than a Democratic one, that he knows what is happening on the ground in Iraq better than people who aren’t there.

The risk for Democrats is that those who take him on will be seen as naïve or weak or beholden to the Cindy Sheehans, which is not a direct route to the Oval Office. The other risk is that those who don’t will be attacked and belittled for failing to do so, and will never make it to the finals in this contest. It was a whole lot easier when this was just Bush’s war.

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