Letters to the Editor
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So, What You're Saying Is...
Frankly, my dear, ...:
So one of Petraeus' male ancestors probably changed whatever the local equivalent of "Rocky" was to Petraeus.
Petraeus is really just on a Rocky Mountain High? (And it's not for us to harsh his buzz?)
John Denver will not be amused.
But this is really a discussion for the Chocolate Interrobang.
Oh, no. You don't get to have all the fun.
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Frankly, my dear:
During the Renaissance, many Europeans translated their names into Latin because of the prestige of the language. Thus lots of Bauer's and Ackermann's became Agricola's. This was particularly true among the educated since the lingua franca of the European intelligentsia was Latin and almost all scientific writing (in the wider sense) was done in Latin and authors usually appended their name to their work in Latin. So one of Petraeus' male ancestors probably changed whatever the local equivalent of "Rocky" was to Petraeus.
Oddly fitting on several levels.
(How dare I say such a thing about this honorable man?!)
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Frankly and Karen
But this is really a discussion for the Chocolate Interrobang.
-- Frankly, my dear
You're right, Frankly, my dear, and I can't tell you, Karen, how much sleep I have lost because I haven't articulated my thoughts on paper well enough yet to send them in to the Chocolate Interrobang. Seriously.
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@ Jebbie
Arne, I don't believe there is too awfully much which I agree with pertaining to what Corporal Anon has written.
I was pointing out for the brave "Anonymous" that he was agreeing with you, right after criticising you:
[Jebbie]: "The problem isn't the size of our military. The problem is that our military was given a task it wasn't designed for, wasn't prepared for, and shouldn't have been ordered to perform."
[anonymous]: Sorry but you are incorrect. The military IS designed for war...that IS our primary mission. What we are NOT designed for is meals on wheels, maintaining a police state or anything else. War is our job.
You pointed out something I tend to agree with; while a military might be trained and expected to do post-combat operations, and may manage to do a reasonable job, ours was neither trained nor expected to do this. The stupendously stoopid and incompetent CPA was supposed to do the "mop-up", Phase IV, operations except perhaps that of MPs. But even the MPs we had tended (for the most part) to be reserve units of less quality and training than regular army, and the MP commanders there that did have an idea of the problems (e.g., Col. Teddy Spain) were seriously shortchanged on troops and weren't even told "who is in charge here" when they asked because of infighting between Bremer and Sanchez.
The brave "anonymous" said basically the very same thing as you said right after you, but only after telling you that what you said was "incorrect".
The horrible mish-mash of lack of any planning for Phase IV should be enough to cause anyone associated with this monumental SNAFU to be cashiered out including the Deciderator-In-Chief ... but instead we're stuck with Dumbya, and he gave Preznitential Medals of Freedom to the three primary culprits (outside himself, Cheney, and Rummy) for the whole fiasco (Tenet, Bremer, and Franks; talk about praise for the guilty).
This on top of the monumental stoopidity of going to war in the first place (Tenet's real failing).
So, sorry to say you "agree" with "anonymous", so if you'd like, I'll put it as him agreeing with you. But that isn't obviously sufficient to make him a wise person.
Is that clearer?
Cheers,
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If the shoe fits...
It's one thing for a someone to be political within their organization. Mid-level managers and executives need political skills to thrive in any corporation. A general has to be political in his position.
It is another thing to be a partisan political hack, a water carrier for the political objectives of a political party - the GOP in this case. Petraeus is playing a political hack, selling a message that is obviously narrow, selective, and outright deceptive. It leaves FALSE impressions. It's dishonest. Not what I want a top soldier to be doing.
In any case, if a general stoops to that level of political hackery, then he opens himself up to every form of political response. Betray-us is a political sound-bite in response to a white house political ploy, a response to Petraeus the politician, not to Petraeus the soldier.
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The "PC" Ruse
DCLaw1:
This bears repeating. I've noticed this from the very start of the anti-PC movement, that the issue was never about resisting language orthodoxy of all stripes, but about dispelling orthodoxy unfavorable to one's political views in order to impose one's own language and paradigms.
It is now taboo to say anything even faintly negative about the military or military men and women, even if it is the undeniable truth. We must constantly maintain and worship a robust and aggressive military, despite the Founders' immense distrust of standing armies, and their insistence that the military be subordinate to civilian control and civil liberties.
It's important to realize that the entire moral panic over "political correctness" was a put-up job. (Our old friend Robert Altemeyer even ran a test and found that RWAs were much more into political correctness than lefties were.) Although it's true origins may be lost in the mists of time, the term became widely used on campuses during the 1980s, as a term of opprobrium used by progressives for those--usually from small sectarian groups--who couldn't manage political analysis, but instead tried to establish moral superiority by dictating how folks should speak.
In short, it was a term that progressives used to rag on posuers. Then, in the late 1980s, with the unexpected demise of the Soviet East Block, there was a sudden need for new demonizing term to take the place of "communie." Bush I had made a first good run by accusing Michael Dukakis of being a "liberal," as if it were a dirty word. But they needed something more. And so, in a very short period of time, an enormous torrent of newspaper and magazine articles appeared about the new tyranny on campus, known as "political correctness," by which they meant pretty much whatever that particular author wanted it to mean. Most, though it was about speech--and to a lesser extent, conduct codes.
Now, here's the thing: Colleges have almost always had speech and conduct codes. They are, after all, communities of learning, and communities have their codes. It was only starting in the 1960s that these codes started to be challenged and significantly revised.
In short, there was absolutely nothing historically remarkable about campus speech codes meant to limit abusive language. What was different was who was being protected from abuse and from whom. And thus, the entire episode was always all about the reassertion of threatened privilege, as for example, Bill Maher found out, when, after years and years of bluster and bluff, he actually said something that really was politically incorrect, and he quickly found himself without a tv show.
So, yes, the ability to talk critically (in the analytical sense, much less the oppositional) about the military, or religion, or any rightwing shibboleth, must indeed be utterly destroyed by precisely the same people who screamed to the high heavens about "political correctness."
Moral outrage, you see, is their private property. And they'll blast the hell out of anyone who tries to stake a claim to it themselves.