{"id":1638,"date":"2008-04-08T20:22:45","date_gmt":"2008-04-09T03:22:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/2008\/04\/well_he_was_a_flop\/"},"modified":"2008-04-08T20:22:45","modified_gmt":"2008-04-09T03:22:45","slug":"well_he_was_a_flop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2008\/04\/well_he_was_a_flop.html","title":{"rendered":"Don&#8217;t pop the cork yet"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The other day we said that if David Petraeus can <a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2008\/04\/read_n_weep.html\">spin the Iraq menu<\/a> this time around, he ought to be promoted from four-star general to five-star headwaiter.<br \/>\n<span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\" style=\"display: inline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wtop.com\/?nid=116&#038;sid=1383196\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt title=\"Gen. David Petraeus testifying on April 8 before the Senate Armed Services Committee\" src=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/assets_c\/2008\/04\/0408_petraeus2-thumb-200x101-thumb-200x101.jpg\" width=\"200\" height=\"101\" class=\"mt-image-left\" style=\"float: left; margin: 0 20px 20px 0;\" \/><\/a><\/span> Well, no promotion for <span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-style: italic;\">heem.<\/span> He couldn&#8217;t spin it.\u00a0Petraeus himself conceded in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wtop.com\/?nid=116&#038;sid=1383196\">his parting remark<\/a> to the Senate Armed Services Committee, &#8220;The Champagne bottle has been pushed to the back of the refrigerator.&#8221;<br \/>\n(Retired Lt. Gen. William Odom, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pbs.org\/newshour\/bb\/military\/jan-june08\/iraq_04-08.html\">commenting on today&#8217;s testimony<\/a>, caught it just right: &#8220;To continue to put the cozy veneer of comfortable half-truth&#8221; on the situation in Iraq &#8220;is to deceive the American public and to make them think it&#8217;s not the charade it is.&#8221;)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The other day we said that if David Petraeus can spin the Iraq menu this time around, he ought to be promoted from four-star general to five-star headwaiter. Well, no promotion for heem. He couldn&#8217;t spin it.\u00a0Petraeus himself conceded in his parting remark to the Senate Armed Services Committee, &#8220;The Champagne bottle has been pushed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1638","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-qq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1638\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}