As mentioned a little while ago, the main thing to say about the Brian Williams-Gen. David Petraeus session was that Petraeus's answers taken together had a value greater than any one of them on its own. Bear with me as I put this in plain old journalistic context:

This was a situation, and a moment, in which just about the worst thing Petraeus could have done would have been to "make news." As he explained at the start of his comments, the Administration is right in the middle of all-out strategic review to assess exactly what America's stake, goals, and possibilities are in Afghanistan. He said he had a three-hour session with the President and the national security team yesterday, with several more to follow next week -- this kind of commitment of a president's "face time" doesn't happen often, especially considering the other items the Administration is juggling right now. For procedural reasons he might have been excused for diverting any substantive comment -- think of the way Supreme Court nominees pretend they have no views on any topic when up for confirmation.

Also, while there is no evidence (that I'm aware of) that Gen. Petraeus has any political party affiliation - and while, indeed, he has offered Shermanesque "if nominated I will not run" responses when asked about a possible campaign for the presidency -- he remains a wish-fulfillment dream candidate of certain parts of the Republican base. This sentiment no doubt has several sources: the long-standing idea that military heroes make strong  candidates (Andrew Jackson onward, if you leave out George Washington -- plus a lot of other political duds in that lineage, including in modern times Generals Haig and LeMay); perhaps unease with the list of other candidates; but also the plain fact that Petraeus was the face of and leader of the "surge" in Iraq at just the time, in late 2007 and early 2008, when Barack Obama was running for the presidency largely on his long-standing opposition to the Iraq War. And no doubt it is flattering for Petraeus, as it would be for anyone.

So in these circumstances, the main "news" that might come from Petraeus would be either an indiscreet leak about the deliberations going on -- or anything whatsoever that could be used as fodder for showing a fissure between a President and his best known and most admired combat commander. 

How did Petraeus finesse this situation? In impressive form, I thought. You'll see if you watch the whole webcast, but I would highlight two meta-features. These are traits that, in my life is journalist, distinguish enlightening, informative interviews from those where you feel that everyone is just wasting time.

First, he avoided making unintended news not by being over-generalized or sloganeering -- as most politicians are most of the time. Instead he avoided it by being precise and nuanced enough always to make his full meaning clear. The precision has, as you'll see, the bonus of making him seem as if he is holding nothing back -- even as he is sticking carefully to established rules of what can and cannot be said. For instance, on a tricky issue that had come up during last year's campaign, he was asked how he weighed all the other factors the country had to contend with -- fiscal deficits, other elements of national security -- against what he wanted for Afghanistan. During the campaign, he'd been quoted as supporting a bigger commitment to Afghanistan. Then-candidate Obama had said, with an edge: if I become president, I will listen to General Petraeus's advice, and then will make my decision. Petraeus, with no edge, essentially said the same thing here: that he was aware of fiscal limits and other concerns, and "they informed my advice to the president, but they did not drive it." Those were for the president to weigh, after hearing his generals' best professional judgment; and that, he said, is exactly how it should be. The same was true in his frequent links of Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and other realms of combat. They were similar in their difference -- in the importance of what he called "granular," tribe-by-tribe, neighborhood-by-neighborhood intelligence and understanding.

Here's a clip that illustrates the precision of fully explaining his argument.


 
That clip also illustrates the second impressive aspect of Petraeus's presentation: his continued interweaving of similarities and differences among different historical eras, different military theaters, different enemies and circumstances. That is all the more clearly on display in this clip, which discusses the importance of "granular" knowledge.




No more bloviating by me, but two more clips plus the full video, after the jump.

In this clip, Petraeus talks about the state of the deliberations over Afghanistan -- and the role in which various sorts of costs will be weighed.





And here, something verging into news when he was asked how he would respond to an Israeli attack on Iran, and about handling Iran in general.
 


To return to my plain old journalist mode, this is the kind of session that would leave you feeling you'd had a valuable interview: getting perspective, hearing about connections and distinctions, and also getting a sense of the mentality with which public officials approach public problems. Plus, seeing someone who is very skillful in saying only and exactly what he knows he can say.

Watch the full video of this session: