‘I mean obviously I made a false statement. At the time I didn’t think it was false . . .’

The appearance by General Petraeus on “This Week” this morning was billed as a try-out for a potential confirmation hearing. He is obviously a very capable and well-spoken man, but judging from this morning, a hearing would be…awkward. As Hillary proved, there is just no good way to explain this kind of this without seeming evasive and defensive. Also, the Petraeus approach to the world would sit uneasily with Trump’s. This on NAFTA jumped out at me: “You may recall,” Petraeus said, “that together with Bob Zoellick, former World Bank president, I co-chaired a Council on Foreign Relations task force on North America that identified a number of pages of issues that could be resolved on NAFTA to make it even more effective for the citizens of all three of our nations.” I know nothing about the work of this CFR task force, but I doubt it reflected a very Trumpist attitude toward Mexico and immigration.