General Petraeus is a military man constantly at war with the facts. In 2004, just before the election, he said there was "tangible progress" in Iraq and that "Iraqi leaders are stepping forward." And last week Petraeus, the architect of the escalation of troops in Iraq, said, “We say we have achieved progress, and we are obviously going to do everything we can to build on that progress.”

Every independent report on the ground situation in Iraq shows that the surge strategy has failed. Yet the General claims a reduction in violence. That’s because, according to the New York Times, the Pentagon has adopted a bizarre formula for keeping tabs on violence. For example, deaths by car bombs don’t count. The Washington Post reported that assassinations only count if you’re shot in the back of the head — not the front. According to the Associated Press, there have been more civilian deaths and more American soldier deaths in the past three months than in any other summer we’ve been there. We’ll hear of neighborhoods where violence has decreased. But we won’t hear that those neighborhoods have been ethnically cleansed.

Most importantly, General Petraeus will not admit what everyone knows: Iraq is mired in an unwinnable religious civil war. We may hear of a plan to withdraw a few thousand American troops. But we won’t hear what Americans are desperate to hear: a timetable for withdrawing all our troops. General Petraeus has actually said American troops will need to stay in Iraq for as long as ten years.

Today, before Congress and before the American people, General Petraeus is likely to become General Betray Us.

• Though the Republican Party has lately been re-defining words like "torture" to mean what they want them to mean at the moment, anyone not afflicted with RepSpeak can clearly distinguish the difference between the concept of "betraying trust" and "committing treason by giving aid and comfort to an enemy of the United States". This isn't comma-dancing, it's plain American English. The "aid and comfort" phrase is a well-known part of the US Constitution defining treason.

• Accusations of treason (aid and comfort to an enemy) should never be used lightly in politics. That's one reason the Constitution defines a very high bar on legal charges of treason, to discourage that very thing.

• Accusing the other party or the opposing candidate of "betraying" the public trust is common as dirt. See below for a dramatic instance.

• Despite the fact that accusations of "treason" are all-too-often used carelessly, there have been real cases of treason in American history, from Benedict Arnold to the officials responsible for blowing Valerie Plame's CIA cover for the cheapest of political purposes. Unionists and Jacksonians often referred to advocates of secession prior to the Civil War as "traitors", and in many cases the usage was entirely legitimate. When real acts of treason are occurring, there's nothing wrong with calling it by its real name.

• Democratic speakers and writers have not often called it "McCarthyism", and maybe that word has become as overused as "the example of Munich" to the point it doesn't actually mean much to most readers and listeners. But pretty much since September 12, 2001, Republicans from Anne Coulter and Rush Limbaugh to John Ashcroft and George Bush have frequently accused war critics and Democratic opponents of the aid-and-comfort type of treason. It's sleazy as all hell But they've been doing it and they're going to keep on doing it.

• As Robert Scheer says in the quote we highlighted this week at The Blue Voice, "So, ambassadors and generals lie. Get used to it." Pretending that generals are somehow holy men beyond question is not "supporting the troops" or "respecting the military": it sticking your head into a part of your body that doesn't admit light.

• To paraphrase Scheer, I would also say, Republicans and their media flacks are going to call Democrats traitors and weak on defense no matter what. Get used to it. But don't ignore it. It's how today's Republican Party acts.

• Given that reality, unilateral rhetorical disarmament by Democrats and war critics is not advisable. That doesn't mean we have to be stupid or sleazy about it. But war critics who think being nicey-nice is going to stop the Republicans from slinging sleaze should probably stop trying to criticize the war. But the Reps are going to try to stigmatize anything and everything you say that departs from the Cheney-Bush line or (for the moment) that sounds even mildly critical of our Saviour-General Petreaus.

He betrayed this country! He played on our fears. He took America on an ill-conceived foreign adventure dangerous to our troops, an adventure preordained and planned before 9/11 ever took place.

Why is it that foulmouthed left-wing bloggers seem to be the only people who have noticed that there's a peculiar set of political rules ruling the Beltway, particularly within media circles, these days?

Here's what we've noticed: For some reason, Democrats must be the model of decorum and civility and moderation and bipartisanship when it comes to governing; any deviance from this script brings on fainting spells and finger-wagging. Meanwhile Republicans can be as vicious and nasty and ruthless and nakedly partisan as they please, and their "toughness" is merely celebrated.

I'm sorry, John Kerry, but you don't help the right wing out. Ever. Now they've got Diaper Dave Vitter out there leading the battle cry, trying to reclaim himself by introducing resolutions to denounce MoveOn. Does Kerry really not know how it works at this point?

These, then, are the Bush Rules in action: Only Democrats have to be civil. "Bipartisanship" means acceding to the conservative agenda. And Republicans can be as vicious as they like, because then we'll just call it "toughness" or, if it's really ugly, "just a joke."

You'd think by now that Democrats would have figured out they're being played for patsies, that the calls for "civility" are just an obfuscatory demand for capitulation and a cover for the right to indulge in the lowest and meanest kind of discourse. But judging from the past week's events, it's clear they haven't.