This morning’s NYT article is only the most recent reminder that some men choose to make history, while others choose to “write the first draft.” A couple of quotes from Michael Ledeen today in The Corner:
It appears we have appointed our worst generals to command forces, and our most gifted and brilliant to edit newspapers! In fact, I discovered by reading newspapers that these editor/geniuses plainly saw all my strategic defects from the start, yet failed to inform me until it was too late. Accordingly, I’m readily willing to yield my command to these obviously superior intellects, and I’ll, in turn, do my best for the cause by writing editorials – after the fact.
- Gen. Robert E. Lee, CSA
I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are. If I killed them all there would be news from Hell before breakfast.”
- Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, USA
Bipartisan consensus, so to speak. Turns out some things do change.
Great quotes and fine concluding sentence – hadn’t read Sherman’s quote before…I have been fortunate to serve with Messrs. Abizaid and Petraeus and I can never understand the impertinence of their detractors. And as Jose Maria Escriva wrote: “There is no peace without victory.” Spiritually intended by the St., but it surely fits.
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
Well said, Ens Tim. Well said.