Don’t bet on it, he doesn’t have the character for it. Nevertheless General Patraeus has accomplished what Greenwald said he wouldn’t do, got interviewed by a liberal. He was interviewed today by Alan Colmes of Hannity and Colmes and Hugh Hewitt has obtained a transcript.

“COLMES: General, is the surge working?

PETRAEUS: Well, it is. We are making progress. We have achieved tactical momentum in many areas, especially against al Qaeda in Iraq, and to a lesser degree against the militia (ph) extremists. We’re also heartened by the number of Iraqi tribes and local citizens who have rejected al Qaeda. We cannot attribute that to the surge but the surge certainly enabled that to move much more rapidly, we believe, than it otherwise would have.

COLMES: Now you …

PETRAEUS: Having said that, there are innumerable challenges. And obviously an enormous amount of hard work remains to be done.

COLMES: The surge strategy has been referred to by some as the Petraeus Doctrine and when you and Ambassador Ryan Crocker report to Congress on September 15, it would be unlikely for you to report that your own strategy isn’t working, right?

PETRAEUS: Well, I have vowed that I will provide a forthright and comprehensive assessment and I’m not going to pull punches, and I have all along, frankly, reported setbacks as well as successes and we intend

to do that when we go back and it will not be an unblemished report.

The interim benchmark report was not an unblemished report. It’s more of a mixed bag.

There has been progress in certain areas. Certainly there has been tactical progress. There has been progress again in this sort of local reconciliation but there has not been comparable progress at the national political level here in Iraq.”

Greenwald had wailed that General Patraeus wouldn’t give him an interview and that’s a no brainer why he wouldn’t. Fact is that Greenwald isn’t worthy to kiss the general’s boots much less interview him. I hope the fact that he picked Colmes gives him fits.

In any case Alan does a supurb job and asks really good and hard questions and the general told him the facts as they are. Check out the rest of the transcript at the link above.