Peggy Noonan: General Malaise (Stop Wesley Clark!)

Opinion Journal ^ | 01/27/04 | Peggy Noonan

[AnAmericanMother]

. . . duh, I dunno . . . :-D

But he almost WASN'T. His family was highly annoyed at the lack of security/maintenance and the deteriorating neighborhood, and threatened to move U.S. & Julia.

Grant's Tomb In Danger of Losing Its Occupants

I think they worked it out since, though.

[Graymatter]

I'd read about that. Above ground burials are always a target. And very expensive.

It's not too late to cremate him. I bet he'd burn like a rocket.

[blackie]

Peggy Noonan has created a gem and her account is right on!

Thanks for the ping, John!

[Pilsner]

Peacetime army and wartime army are two different animals and tend to push two different kinds of men to the top. And when war comes, the peacetime "perfumed princes" get dumped unceremoniously. Spike Milligan in his autobiography refers to the "Montgomery Purge" of the British higher-ups.

In WWI Foch, the French CIC fired almost 150 French Generals during the first few weeks of the War. He ruthlessly dumped those who were too old or too timid and replaced them with younger and/or more ruthless Generals, and the French eventually won. In WWII the French CIC, Gamelin, was too gentlemanly for such behavior. He left the elderly and incompetent at their posts and watched as the French army crumbled.

[AnAmericanMother]

LOL! "Spontaneous Human Combustion".

It's probably all fumed off by now - like the old bottle of Scotch we found in the back of my grandfather's kitchen cabinet. Alcoholic content: zero.

[AnAmericanMother]

Good thing Foch died before he had to see the French give up without a whimper.

I really think when the "poilus" were wiped out in WWI that was the last of the scrappy little French infantrymen. Obviously they haven't passed their genes on to the current crop.

[Dutchgirl]

What gives Peggy Noonan the idea dumbocrats give a damn about the country??

Noonan, an Irish Catholic college educated Northerner, was raised to be a good democrat and vote for Kennedys. Her stint at CBS opened her eyes, and, like Ronald Reagan, she realised that she hadn't left the Party, the Party had left her.

She isn't a party hack. She is an idealist and a thinker. She loves her family, who all vote democrat...I am sure when she sits down to holiday meals, she must defend herself without wounding others.

There are times that I am ashamed of what the GOP leadership does...in particular when, for political expediency, they abandon the conservative core values of smaller government, more individual liberty and personal responsibility. I shudder to think of the "Faith Based" initiatives, and their effect on religious institutions. (I'm from the government and I'm here to help you.) Noonan knows that there are dems out there who are ashamed of their party leadership as well, and the candidacy of Dr. Strangelove is something to be ashamed of.

Noonan is appealing to those dems who were raised to think that dems fight for the little guy against big government and big corporations. Those are the kind of people who elect trial lawyers to represent them. Very much an Us against Them mentality. She is saying,"Rational people can agree that this man is not fit for the presidency."

Dem's serve in the military, and usually come out Republicans. Dem's join unions, register as dems and then turn around and vote Republican,as happened with Reagan. Dems can be taught, but not by anyone who has contempt for their ability to learn. Noonan is a very good teacher.

[Jaguar Girl]

Peggy is good. The only thing I disagree with in what she wrote is that the democrats do not care about America. They only care about themselves.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[SAJ]

Only until Benty Willy and McAwful pull their funding. Weaselly never was anything but a stalking horse.

You're absolutely right, of course; I should not have put ''starting'' in that sentence. Sheesh.

[.cnI redruM]

Dean, Clark and Larouche. It's so easy to group those three in a similar subset.

[JasonC]

I think you have something there, that is definitely part of it. Combined with ambition - that is the relatively rare part. There are a lot of natural "staff" people who are good at that, but also aren't particularly trying to "climb" - instead they are trying to do well whatever task is in front of them. He would not appear to be that sort. But he may have mimicked it reasonably well.

The other thing I notice from his resume - especially late, after making general - is that he seems to have gravitated to assignments that might have distasteful elements from a certain "warfighters" point of view. Academic posts within the army fit his West Point record - he was a brain, obviously. OMB is not where warriors dream of going. Running the NTC is commanding Opfor, the guys that play the enemy and use his doctrine - but that was the closest to a prime warfighters assignment. To him who knows, perhaps it was a schoolmaster's assignment to him.

After that he seems to climb by taking messy jobs without complaint. He commanded the unarmoring of the 1st cav, making it "light", after it had helped win Gulf War I as a heavy division. This was the post cold war downsizing period (delayed until after Gulf War I in the case of the heavy army). He negotiated for a peace with the Serbs that was effectively rewarding ethnic cleansing. He supervised giving up Panama and leaving. Even Kosovo was run as an antiseptic war that kept his own branch, the army, out of it, unused.

So, all along has he been used because he is smart rather than a strong character, self effacing when that is what his superiors want but ambitious as heck over subordinates, answering "up" and ignoring what it means downward, a creature of patronage rather than popularity or loyalty? That fits your assessment, I think. Who is he answering up to now? And what is distasteful about the assignment? (Likely loss, perhaps?)

[Scenic Sounds]

One could certainly reach that conclusion from reading this site.

Yes, but you know these critics call themselves "real conservatives" for a good reason - they don't like uncertainty or change. The only kind of change that they ever advocate and the only kind of change that would not frighten them is the one kind of change that's not possible - to return to comfortable paths that we've already traveled. So long as the rate of change in this world continues to accelerate, the "real conservatives" are going to be unhappy with the news. And I think it's a very healthy thing that there are people out there vocalizing this resistance to change.

But, come election day, they will be faced with the same choices that we face and I don't think it's too hard to predict what choices they will make. For the most part, they're a pretty rational bunch. ;-)

[maica]

My impression: Wesley Clark was wooed by the clintons and was talked into a decision to run just last summer. He has not had years of listening to potential voters, since he only ever studied those above him as necessary to impress. In this contest, he thought he had to impress Bill, Hill and Terry. He really did not consider that 100 milion potential voters might want some answers, too.

[MrConfettiMan]

Noonan ping.

[Aquinasfan]

All of Noonan's criticisms are valid and important.

"What a phony! . . . Clark reminds me of Keir Dullea in '2001: A Space Odyssey'--a blank, vacant expression, detached and affectless."

Wow! Paglia may be a nut, but she got that one right.

[Marysecretary]

IN GRANT'S TOMB, Silly.

[Graymatter]

>>IN GRANT'S TOMB, Silly. Literally? ;)

[Explorer89]

Thanks. Caught it in print in Monday's paper....