Sen Warner is a fool

I didn't see the President's SOTU speech last night, was in class learning about data mining and how SAS provides tools to make data mining easier and how businesses can make better use of the information. There are lots of other places on the web talking about the SOTU speech and will let you go see them.

Story in the Washington Post is just amazing to me. Yes, I'm quoting from the story because they've written parts of it better then I would have.

The setting:
General Petraeus, new head of the forces in Iraq (I don't think he's head of CENCOM because he is only a Lt. General (3 stars) and not a full General (4 stars)) was testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The question:
Senator Lieberman asked Gen Petraeus

if Senate resolutions condemning White House Iraq policy "would give the enemy
some comfort."

The answer:
General Petraeus answered: "That's correct, sir."

The reaction from the fool (Sen Warner)

Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), until recently chairman of the Armed Services
Committee and a co-sponsor of one of those resolutions, later explained to the
general that he needed to be more careful about appearing to wade into a
political debate and warned Petraeus to not let himself be trapped into
portraying members of Congress as unpatriotic for disagreeing with President
Bush:

When I worked for Uncle Sam many years ago (civilian side, not military), I was told I had limits placed on what political activities I could partake in. Basically I couldn't work on political campaigns anymore and attending political rallies were actively discouraged. It might give the appearance of violating the rules. However, no one ever tried to take away my 1st Amendment right of free speech. Especially when asked a question from a superior, I was expected to answer truthfully.

I admit I haven't been in government service for a long time, but I haven't heard anything saying federal workers and especially military personnel are to not answer questions when asked by their lawful superiors as long as the question is not illegal. So if Sen Lieberman asked a lawful question (will these Senate resolutions provide some comfort to the enemy), the General was bound to answer it. If he didn't, he could have been held in contempt of Congress and put in jail.

For Sen Warner to take General Petraeus to task for answering a lawful question truthfully shows how much respect Sen Warner has for the rule of law the rest of us citizens must follow, ignorance of the military tradition (tell the truth even if its not what the superior wants to hear aka as duty and honor) and himself to be a fool.

I can't talk too much because Boxer is one of my Senators and she is a bigger fool then Warner, although Warner seems to want to give her a race for the title of biggest fool.

Hat tip Lucianne.