The Petraeus Affair may lead us back to looking at what generals accomplish as opposed to how they appear in the media. We've seen Andrew Bacevich and Tom Ricks raise questions as to just how successful a general Petraeus has been, considering we have lost both Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Now, Lucian Truscott has joined them, but in a much nastier manner, to wit:
The generals who won World War II were the kind of men who, as it was
said at the time, chewed nails for breakfast, spit tacks at lunch and
picked their teeth with their pistol barrels. General Petraeus probably
flosses. He didn’t chew nails and spit tacks, but rather challenged
privates to push-up contests and went out on five-mile reveille runs
with biographers.
His greatest accomplishment was merely personal: he transformed himself
from an intellectual nerd into a rock star military man. The problem was
that he got so lost among his hangers-on and handlers and roadies and
groupies that he finally had his head turned by a West Point babe in a
sleeveless top.
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