It’s a long way to the top

While AC/DC told us it’s a long way to the top if you wanna rock ‘n roll, it’s also a long way to the top if you want to be a “senior military leader.”

From Ricochet in a blistering take on David Petraeus, his resignation, and those who are perceived as being like Petraeus:

The path to power in our armed forces has two critical components: first, make sure you always profess your faith in the ideology of the ruling class; second, spend as much time near the source of power in Washington and obtaining advanced degrees from prestigious civilian institutions as possible.

The above assertions are wrong at worst and incomplete at best. The real story regarding successful military careers, as the saying goes, is “it depends.”

(Example: at this point in time, it is still possible to be promoted if you drive an SUV and not a Prius.)

While you don’t have to “profess your faith” in the “ruling class” (which I’ll broaden to mean your service, Army, for example, or specialty/weapon system, airlift, let’s say), I do believe you can’t speak any ideological unfaith, or even give voice to any doubts (except under very limited conditions). Basically, you need to convincingly appear to be assimilated and the higher your rank, the more assimilated-looking you must be.

And regarding the “advanced degrees from prestigious civilian institutions,” there’s far more to it than that. In fact, too many educational experiences will normally lead to career self-elimination/plateauing as the military rewards action (which happens in military assignments  including command and “standing close to the flagpole”) and not introspection (which occurs in an educational setting).

Beyond all that, the government-military complex has established set asides for all sorts of impressive sounding academic programs (and pays for them), so it isn’t as competitive as getting into Princeton as a white, non-legacy, Appalachian-American male. Some of the military services, the Air Force, for example, are quite egalitarian, assuming you’re a pilot. The USAF has plenty of general officers with advanced degrees from Central Michigan and Embry Riddle.

Back to the Ricochet article:

Waging war successfully is not a criterion for advancement to the senior ranks of our military. This accounts for the prominence of generals like Petraeus and Powell.

While the first blurb was highly arguable, the above blurb is inarguable. First off, even during war, large parts of the military may not be “at war.” Next, being great at your military job is neither necessary nor sufficient for an eye-watering military career (although it is undeniably helpful). What is necessary is avoiding blame (if failure should occur) and having the right words and right blocks checked on your performance reports (and from the right people). Over time this become your record.

And as the saying goes, your record—and not you—is what meets the promotion board. In time, a “halo,” deserved or not, hardens into a form of institutional “can’t fail” (unless some sort of crime or egregious violation—like adultery—has been committed while on active duty).

Total war—World War II—led to military leaders who were total warriors (think Curtis LeMay) from whom advanced academic degrees from prestigious institutions did not matter. What then did matter was a successful combat record. Today, the thought of total war is far-fetched. Our nation lacks the will, stomach, and capacity to wage total war. So in the meantime, we’ll continue to create leaders who work within the system that exists.

In the military or anywhere else, what gets rewarded is what gets done.

I tell you folks, it’s harder than it looks…

A Progressive Surge?

Only flat-earthers, as epitomized by The Nation, could take a narrow Obama victory (getting fewer votes than John McCain in 2008 and losing 10 million voters) and call it A Progressive Surge.

Mark Steyn offers a more realistic take on the Obama surge:

In the course of his first term, Obama increased the federal debt by just shy of $6 trillion and in return grew the economy by $905 billion. So, as Lance Roberts at Street Talk Live pointed out, in order to generate every dollar of economic growth the United States had to borrow about five dollars and 60 cents. There’s no one out there on the planet — whether it’s “the rich” or the Chinese — who can afford to carry on bankrolling that rate of return. According to one CBO analysis, U.S.-government spending is sustainable as long as the rest of the world is prepared to sink 19 percent of its GDP into U.S. Treasury debt. We already know the answer to that: In order to avoid the public humiliation of a failed bond auction, the U.S. Treasury sells 70 percent of the debt it issues to the Federal Reserve…

That’s a more accurate description of the progressive/regressive surge: increased federal debt, government misinvestment, and the Ponzi scheme that pays for it.

To lean on one of the left’s intellectual leaders, it’s the government spending, stupid. Things that can’t continue forever won’t.

Libtards fail to understand economics

The Obamunists, AKA the libtards, clearly fail to understand economics. Somehow, they are incapable of grasping that massive government intervention (for example, Obamacare) might actually dissuade business from hiring or from sustaining current hiring levels. Libtards are the ones who think things like healthcare, Obamaphones, and food stamps are free.

From Twitchy, one person knows the truth:

Among the commandments of life under the Obama administration: thou shalt not speak ill of Obamacare. Papa John’s CEO John Schnatter was hammered with Twitter abuse after informing shareholders and franchisees in August that implementing Obamacare would necessarily increase costs of running the business. Applebee’s [sic] is under the gun today after Zane Tankel, a franchisee whose company runs 40 New York-area restaurants, told Fox Business Network that a hiring freeze might be in the works.

Libtards somehow don’t get, or choose not to get, that government disincentives—whether ever-increasing regulatory constraints or government directed “investments”—lead to crony capitalism and reduced consumer (and employment) options.

Is the idea of government pizza—Papa Sam’s?—appealing?

Ultimately, someone must create value for society and the government can’t do it as well—or at all—as the market can.

More Petraeus resignation hooey: it ain’t adding up

The Petraeus resignation backstory smells worse and worse. From Politico:

The FBI reportedly happened upon former CIA Director David Petraeus’s extramarital affair while investigating a complaint from a woman close to Petraeus who had received harassing emails from the general’s alleged mistress.

First, when does the FBI get involved—as an apparent first responder—in complaints about “harassing emails”?

Answer: I’ll take “never” for a thousand.

More:

…the sexual demeanor of the [Petraeus/Paula Broadwell] emails pointed to an affair. Investigators approached Petraeus two weeks ago about what they had discovered and told him no criminal charges would be filed, according to The New York Times.

Next, what charges—exactly—would be considered?

Beyond that, if there is no crime, what exactly was being investigated?

Finally, given that adultery has been granted status as a societal non-crime, why did Petraeus resign?

While Petraeus is a self-confessed zipper case and such behavior can’t be condoned, it seems he’s getting—so to speak—shafted.

BTW, All In is the title of Broadwell’s biography on Petraeus. Sounds like some sort of Freudian slip or double entendre which is sadly appropriate for this whole peculiar spectacle.

On the Petraeus resignation: what just happened?

David Petraeus, CIA Director, resigns on the Friday before Veterans Day for having an extramarital affair. What really just happened?

Here’s the WSJ’s report:

The [FBI’s] computer-security investigation—which raised questions about a potential compromise to national security—points to one reason Mr. Petraeus and the White House decided he couldn’t remain in the senior intelligence position. An extramarital affair has significant implications for an official in a highly sensitive post, because it can open an official to blackmail.

Except that makes no sense! Petraeus just coughed up his mea culpa, ergo how could he be blackmailed? As such, that theory makes as much sense as Barney Frank being blackmailed for being homosexual.

And while we’re at it, let’s get real: the Administration has been no friend to David Petraeus.

First, the Administration did all it could to minimize Petraeus, a military rock star, by sending him over to Afghanistan to replace his own subordinate after the media manufactured McChrystal mauling. Next, when Petraeus retired, a man of his record warrants the Directorship of the CIA? Not exactly a leap ahead—as being Chairman of the JCS would be—and likely so planned by the Administration. Finally, all this comes after the election and after Petraeus, like the Administration itself, put up a gigantic “not our fault” flashing neon sign with regard to the Benghazi debacle.

Could it be a coincidence, you ask, that this comes out in the wash just after the election? The odds of a coincidence range from improbable to impossible. Why? Because (again) according to the WSJ, this e-scandal has been bouncing around since the spring and it ended months ago.

The computer investigation began late this spring, according to a person familiar with the investigation. Mr. Petraeus wasn’t interviewed by the FBI until recently.

While Mr. Petraeus was still a general, he had email exchanges with the woman, but there wasn’t a physical relationship, the person said. The affair began after Mr. Petraeus retired from the Army in August 2011 and ended months ago, the person said.

I have no sympathy for a zipper case, yet on this issue, the fix was in and was being held until just the right moment. Military guys have little propensity to fight back (versus their political counterparts; think Bill Clinton) and lack the stomach for a steady stream of disgrace and embarrassment as the FBI-found e-mails would likely reveal… of course, unless you were to resign, General.

Better to just fade away.

All zipper cases are not created equal

David Petraeus’s political future has almost certainly just gone up in a puff of smoke. The cause? Extramarital sex.

While all general officers—and flag officers—are political, big-boy politics ain’t beanbag, nor is it nearly as collegial as the military.

(Consider Colon Colin Powell, a non-zipper case military man who still clearly confirms the military-political Peter Principle. With Powell, the longer he’s out of the public light, the better his legacy.)

Other political zipper cases—Bill Clinton, the Lyin’ Lion of the Senate, his brother, others—haven’t fared as poorly as Petraeus, nor for that matter, are those who have been charged with crimes, such a John Edwards (although Edwards is finally toast).

Yeah, you got your occasional Gary Hart, but it’s strange how it works out, isn’t it?

Oliver Stone speaks truth to power… sorta

Oliver Stone may as well prepare his apologies now for his gaffe—that is, speaking an unsayable truth—regarding Broncobama.

From Politico (and interestingly, running after the election. Coincidence, I’m sure.):

In Oliver Stone’s new book — “The Untold History of the United States” — the filmmaker, along with historian Peter Kuznick, argues that, “The country Obama inherited was indeed in shambles, but Obama took a bad situation and, in certain ways, made it worse.”

Of course the above assessment is constrained—in certain ways—but a better question becomes this: in what way or ways—exactly—has Barry made things better? Anyone… anyone?

More from the stoned one (and his helper):

Despite their critiques of the current administration, both [authors] still adopted a “best of two evils” attitude towards Obama.

“I believe he has a heart, I do,” said Stone. “But what follows him? He’ll be out of office in four years. Who’s going to be in office in 2020 when the weapons are worse? If another administration comes in like the Bush or Romney administration, what’s to prevent them from using these weapons in a far more sinister way?”

The next questions: 1) sure he has a heart but does he have a brain? 2) what weapons? and 3) given Bush has already had his chance to use the existent weapons “in a far more sinister way,” how can one explain why he didn’t do so, and more so, why his failure to do so makes him scarier than Dear Reader who has?

And one more blurb:

“I see more potential in Obama, as critical as I am,” said Kuznick. “I don’t believe that’s truly his essence and his soul. I think if we mobilized forces and pushed him the right direction, he’d be happy to be pushed.”

The NBA and historians, it would seem, reward potential versus performance. Besides that, it appears Obama is the one doing the pushing and we’re the ones facing the cliff.

Enjoy the ride down, Americans.

Enjoy the ride down, Americans.

Enjoy the ride down, Americans.

Splat.

What do you believe and why?

For conservatives, the Tuesday election results brought forth weeping and gnashing of teeth. That’s ok. It’s a normal response when you lose something following a large investment of intellectual and emotional capital.

For liberals, the Tuesday election results delivered jubilation and celebration. That’s normal as well, but the conclusions the left is now drawing are not supported by reality. Examples:

• Harry Reid-tard thinks the American people have embraced tax increases as a result of the narrow Obama victory. That’s the way the left thinks, in power terms, and money—taxes in this case—is power.
• Eugene Robinson says A New America Speaks. He ignores the Obama drop from 2008 as well as the general zeitgeist of the people regarding America’s way forward.
• A third guy says Obama’s victory vindicates his Iran policy. I suppose this means the same writer would offer the Obama win validates his Benghazi policy, his Arab Spring policy, his Russian Reset policy, and all other policies, foreign and domestic, as well.

A better explanation of the narrow Obama win—and his microscopic coattails—is this: for better or worse (worse, based on his record), many voted for Broncobama as a popular or historical or even transcendent figure, even if far fewer held this view than they did in 2008. Romney, and the ideas he represents, didn’t have enough appeal to create victory. And when you have a 47% built-in base like Dear Reader does, you don’t have to skim off too many of the rest to eek out a win.

So while liberals demonstrate that man remains the only creature capable of lying to himself, there’s more than sorrow or joy at work in this one election, or so far as it goes, in any number of elections. The long war is one of ideas, of winning hearts and minds: conservative ideas possess efficacy and explanatory power; liberal ideas have failed.

And what’s the way ahead for the black, for the white, the red and brown, the purple and yellow? Fight the (left’s) power.

There’s no guarantee…

Who will be the 2016 nominees?

Unless he signs an executive order cancelling the twenty-second Amendment (and the realigned Supreme Court and/or the UN signs off on it), Broncobama won’t have third term. With Joe Biden incapable of passing a competency test, on the Dem side you’re left with Hillary Clinton as the front-runner for 2016 and perhaps Republican Colon Powell as runner-up.

And let’s be real. People have a way of forgetting things (or perhaps, selective memory). Case in point, Bill Clinton who arguably pulled Broncobama’s bacon out of the fire. Think Bill won’t be doing the same for Hillary in the run up to 2016 (and think how much he owes her regarding his miscreancy)?

Still, Republicans must remember America’s fastest growing demographic: fat people.

Yet working against Christie is the fact a picture’s worth a thousand words.

Barack Obama and the Dallas Cowboys

Barack Obama is to the United States presidency as the Dallas Cowboys of the last ten years have been to the National Football League: a spectacle that’s perhaps interesting, but is limited to chronic underachievement and generalized losing.

As with the Cowboys, the Obama Administration is touted for its talent. Yet when the game is played, the results are often a loss. Sometimes the loss is a just football game; other times it’s the loss of a once-great America by bitterly clinging to failed leftist policies.

The Cowboys have a flashy stadium and celebrity owner; America has a celebrity president who appears on Nickelodeon, Jimmy Fallon, and David Letterman. The Cowboys have their own clueless, die-hard fans and with a 47% base, so does the President.

Finally, the Cowboys are sometimes described as “America’s Team” while Obama remains America’s president.

Did Obama win because of his policies?

The theory Barack Obama was re-elected due to his policies, as offered by the New York Times, is laughable.

President Obama’s dramatic re-election victory was not a sign that a fractured nation had finally come together on Election Day. But it was a strong endorsement of economic policies that stress job growth, health care reform, tax increases and balanced deficit reduction — and of moderate policies on immigration, abortion and same-sex marriage.

Such “analysis” is beyond idiotic: Obama won in spite of his policies, not because of them.

The economy is, and has been, in the septic tank for the duration of Obama’s presidency—the Obama ‘recovery’ has been worse than the Bush ‘recession.’ Job “growth” is limited to the government sector and part-time employment. Health care “reform” creates another mega-entitlement filled with demand while squeezing supply. As for tax increases… well, there’s that whole fiscal cliff thing. “Balanced deficit reduction” means adding over five trillion to the national debt during Obama’s first-term. “Moderate” policies on immigration never happened; “moderate policies” on abortion advocate any time, any where, any reason, and someone else pays; finally, “moderate policies” on homosexual “marriage” is sop to homosexuals (and when they “divorce,” to the trial lawyers).

But what happens when the music stops? When John Galt bails—or heads to greener pastures—and there’s literally (Biden-speak) no more wealth to be spread around? We’ve had the dot com bubble and the housing bubble, and now we’re in the still-inflating government bubble. It’s just a matter of when it pops and the longer it inflates, the worse the pop is going to be.

So contrary to the brilliant minds at the New York Times, Obama won for one reason: voters viewed him as more likable than Mitt Romney and they cast their ballots accordingly. It’s the same burden John McCain faced in 2008. The 2012 Obama corollary is 1) few voters understand the free-lunch fallacy and 2) the media gave him a free ride (or better said, paid his way).

The president’s first-terms policies have been one fail after another and given Obama’s demonstrated inability to learn from his mistakes, a second-term will present more daunting challenges for normal Americans than ever before.

Losing hope in America or losing hope in Americans?

The liberal vision of the American welfare state has failed. The percentage of Americans in poverty has barely budged from the time the ‘war on poverty’ was launched, despite transfer payments of $15 trillion since 1964 and the spend-trend is worsening:

According to the Cato report, the federal government will spend more than $668 billion to fight poverty in 2012. State and local governments will spend an additional $284 billion, amounting to $20,610 for every poor person in America, or $61,830 per poor family of three.

Since Barack Obama took office, total federal welfare spending has increased over 40 percent. Obamaphone, anyone?

The liberal vision, which often includes gauzy platitudes about reducing the debt, more  teachers and firefighters, and investing in America seems to ignore the unspoken yet undeniable truth that government cannot cure all our ills, for if it could, it surely would have done so by now. Similarly, if government deficit spending could have healed the economy, wouldn’t it have also done so?

Instead we have the real (yet largely ignored) welfare state issues of unpayable government debt, chronic unemployment, unkeepable government promises, and government’s ever-increasing big-brother intrusiveness.

But the failures of the liberal vision hardly means the conservative message of freedom and opportunity (balanced with personal responsibility) has succeeded, witness yesterday’s election results. As it has been observed, you can’t use tax cuts to buy off people who are net recipients of tax transfers.

“America” is a people, a place, and an ideal, but “Americans” are merely the people who are the residents of the place. Americans may or may not buy in to the ideals America was founded on.

The people have spoken

The people have spoken and the people, as a group, are clearly far more stupid than I have given them credit for. A vacuous and corrupt media is a major contributor.

Prepare the sackcloth and ashes because things that can’t continue forever won’t.

Unbold prediction: four years from now the United States will be worse off with regard to our economy, our indebtedness, our household wealth, and our place in the world than we are today.

We’re number twelve!

The good news is that America is the world’s twelfth most prosperous nation.

The bad new is that we’ve fallen out of the top ten for the first time ever.

The criteria for prosperity are:

economy, entrepreneurship and ownership, governance, education, health, safety and security, personal freedom, and social capital.

So the question is this: has our slip in prosperity been caused by the Obama Administration, or is it only correlated with Barry and his band of d-baggers?

Imagine, as Michelle Obama has asked us to do, what Barry will be able to accomplish in another four years! Maybe he will make Tom Frymom’s Friedman’s dreams come true and we’ll be just like China (currently number 55)! Exciting times, indeed!

A word from the most interesting man in the world

Obama’s got 99 problems but the media ain’t one

Dear Reader has many problems—mainly domestic and foreign policy failures—but one he doesn’t have is with the media.

And yet Politico tells us CBS is under fire for withholding Obama’s Benghazi remarks.

CBS News is continuing to draw fire for withholding footage of a Sept. 12 interview with President Barack Obama in which he said it was “too early to tell” whether or not the previous day’s attack in Benghazi, Libya, had been an act of terror.

That remark, which was not included in the “60 Minutes” package that first aired on Sept. 23, was also left out of a subsequent package that aired in the days following the second presidential debate, when President Obama said that he had called the attack “an act of terror” in his Rose Garden address on Sept. 12, which took place before the interview. The remark was not released until yesterday, a fact Bret Baier of Fox News called attention to earlier today.

So basically, CBS is under fire from Bret Baier. For CBS protecting the President.

On the other hand, most media men and women will feel their hearts swell with pride at the CBS revelation. It’s called taking one for the team.

The Weather Underground

If you want to get an idea of the nihilistic violence and brain-dead “thinking” that was a part of the 1960s and 1970s, watch the documentary The Weather Underground (2002). (I watched it on Hulu-plus as a part of my two week trial.)

The mind-blowing idiocy of the The Weather Underground (AKA the Weathermen, Weathermen, and/or The Weather Underground Organization), the group that in 1969 co-opted the Students for a Democratic Society, is almost beyond description. If there ever has been an association of Jim Jones-like group-thinkers, it would have to be the self-absorbed fools of The Weather Underground.

The movie is quite reminiscent of Apocalypse Now: “They told me that you had gone totally insane, and that your methods were unsound.”

Of course, Obama mentors and domestic terrorists Bill Ayers and his unlovely wife, Bernadine Dorn were members of this group.

But remember, Mitt Romney is a Mormon and is therefore scary. Or even a radical.

The lowest form of journalist: “sports writer”

Liberal/progressive/leftist/Democrat thoughts still prevail in the media, even in sports “journalism.”

Consider New York Daily News’s “sports writer” Mike Lupica (emphasis/formatting in the original which appears in the middle of a “sports article”):

— There is no more repellent character in Cable America than Michelle Malkin.

Which in an Ann Coulter world, is saying a mouthful.

The term projection has never been better exampled. Methinks the scribe—possessing the insight of Stephen A. Smith and the charm of Skip Bayless (or vise versa)—doth protest too much.

And once the scribe gets a recurring slot on ESPN, things degrade from there.

Bruce Springsteen and Joe Biden

Bruce Springsteen is a man who sings as if he’s blown-out an o-ring and is inexplicably called ‘The Boss.’ He was once an angsty rock-n-roller; now Springsteen’s been reduced to an aged-out sing-and-raise-money guy for the left. Ah, Glory Days.

Joe Biden is a gaffe-master and is the epitome of why politicos have spokesmen. While Joe often traffics in more than mere gaffes—trending towards drooling idiocy—he remains well-known for accidentally telling the truth.

And it seems Bruce Springsteen has accidentally spoken the truth, ‘freaking out’ over Dear Reader being crushed like a grape during the first debate. If only David Axelrod had pre-briefed Bruce on the party’s approved talking points…

The first term is what freaked me out…

Benghazigate and Watergate

Benghazigate is a national-level cover-up of a security and foreign policy debacle that resulted in the deaths of four Americans.

Watergate was merely a national disgrace.

Will Mr. Obama be able to run out the clock on Benghazi? It would appear he will. That doesn’t ensure his re-election, but a Watergate-like media frenzy which unpacked the entire Benghazi story would reasonably increase the chances of Mitt Romney’s election.

The intelligence community, purposefully thrown under the bus by the Administration more than a month ago, has been simultaneously backpedaling while assuming a defensive (‘not our fault’) position. From Fox:

Fox News was told by both American and British contacts who were in Benghazi that night [9/11] that the CIA timeline rolled out this past week is only “loosely based on the truth” and “doesn’t quite add up.”

It’s easier to attribute the initial problems with the Benghazi debacle to the Administration’s policies (and incompetence), but over time, the conspiracy story-line (that is, they needed to protect their national security narrative; that al Qaeda is toast) has more explanatory power.

While the fog of war and its corollary, the first report from the field is always wrong, may have explained some of the initial fumbles, the Administration has had six weeks since the Benghazi debacle to get a factual story together and has still failed to do so.

The Hurricane got the Administration out of the Benghazigate semi-spotlight and the media shows little interest in engaging on the subject as it might reasonably result in a Watergate-like scalping of Mr. Obama, VP Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, or Leon Panetta. If the media felt they could get the scalps of DNI James Clapper and/or CIA Director David Petraeus, that would likely generate more interest.