One thing is clear: Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, testified before our nation’s next commander in chief yesterday.

What wasn’t clear was which one of the presidential candidates sitting in two packed hearing rooms on Capitol Hill will be in the Oval Office in ‘09.

Sens. John McCain, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama all took detours from the campaign trail to hear status reports on the Iraq war.

The hearings turned the spotlight on the candidates‘ wide differences on the most important security issue that will face the next president.

It was a critical show of strength for the Democrats in particular, although the questioning remained mostly respectful and low-key, lacking fireworks.

No references to 935 lies, in other words.

At the morning hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, John McCain argued that it was “reckless and irresponsible” to call, as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have, for the phased withdrawal of U.S. troops.

He did not remain in the room long enough to hear Mrs. Clinton’s response - that it’s even more irresponsible to stick with the current strategy.

“It might well be irresponsible to continue a policy that has not produced the results that have been promised time and time again,” she said.

John McCain enjoyed a bit of a tactical advantage in that as the panel’s senior Republican, he was one of the first senators to question Gen. David Petraeus.

He used his time to underscore the pillar of his campaign:

Progress is being made via the troop surge, and U.S. withdrawal will cause irreparable damage to Iraq and to American interests.

“To promise a withdrawal of our forces, regardless of the consequences, would constitute a failure of political and moral leadership,” John McCain said.

Sometimes overtly and other times not, both Clinton and Obama have referred to the seemingly interminable Iraq conflict the Bush-McCain War.

Barack Obama, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, attended the general’s second, afternoon hearing before that panel.

Continue reading in the Los Angeles Times …