American Grandstand

The General's job is to WIN a conflict. The Dim-ocrats believe the war is supposed to be LOST.

BTW, he is not on the JCS. He's a couple of steps down from there, since he's not even the Theater Commander (which was Admiral Fallon until he resigned a week or so ago...no permanent replacement named as of yet).

checking for slice and dice.

slice and dice the petraeus testimony.

Crawfish hits the main point. The purpose of a "real" hearing would be to determine the progress toward the goal of winning the war. Since democrats don't share that goal with the U.S. it is impossible for them to ask the right questions.

The military executes orders to the best of their ability, it is the administration that creates policy and issues those orders. Policy questions are simply above his pay grade and therefore inappropriate.