Sen. John Edwards mocked Bush's "so-called global war on terror" and said America is less safe than it was before the 2001 terrorist attacks. We can only hope that someone makes Edwards eat the words "so-called global war on terror."

Sen. Joe Biden, who voted to authorize the Iraq War resolution and who earlier advised against setting a specific timetable for withdrawal of our forces from Iraq is now demanding withdrawal. I'm sure Biden's faltering presidential campaign had nothing to do with his reversals.

Contrary to the weight of the available evidence, Biden said the administration's policy and the surge are failures and that "there is no security in Baghdad or Anbar province." In a shameless allusion to Vietnam, Biden said he believed "absolutely, positively, unequivocally" that if we didn't change course in Iraq, "helicopters would be evacuating Americans from the Green Zone in Baghdad within two years."

But accusing Bush and Petraeus of ongoing incompetence wasn't enough. Sen. Richard Durbin accused Petraeus of "carefully manipulating the statistics" in favor of the surge. Sen. Harry Reid essentially called Petraeus a liar. Rep. Nancy Pelosi called Petraeus's report "the Bush report," and Sen. Dianne Feinstein likewise challenged Petraeus's "independence."

Rep. Tom Lantos insulted Petraeus as the hearings began, implying that Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker were just political shills for the administration ("they are delivering a report for the White House") who "were sent here this morning to restore credibility to a discredited policy." Lantos added, "No amount of charts or statistics will improve (the administration's) credibility." And: "The surge has failed."

In his impressive testimony, the general blew these slanderers out of the water. He denied that generals cited by Democrats disagreed with his recommendations, gave an optimistic but modest assessment of the surge, and emphatically asserted his independence and authorship of the report, which "has not been cleared nor shared by anyone in the Pentagon, the White House or the congress until it was just handed out." It was a sight to behold.

To answer my opening question: No, the left truly seems to have lost all shame.