Remembering MacArthur
Perhaps someone should give General Petraeus a copy of a good biography of General of the Army Douglas MacArthur to read before he does something silly.
It wouldn’t hurt if the White House started displaying a portrait of Harry Truman in the Cabinet Room, just to remind people who is in charge.
MacArthur was probably three times more popular than Truman when he was fired, and was being talked about as a candidate for the Republican nomination for President, while Truman was a lame duck. MacArthur “just faded away” after the episode.
7 comments
Petraeus could get whatever he wanted from the Boy Wonder. I doubt he’ll be as lucky with Obama. Obama runs a tight ship and doesn’t tolerate anybody breaking message discipline, I was quite impressed by his team’s message discipline throughout both the primaries and the election season. There were only a couple of lapses, and they were quickly addressed by the culprit being promptly shitcanned. I was unimpressed by Obama’s policies (he was basically my 5th choice, behind pretty much everybody else in the Democratic race), but when it comes to running a tight ship, he ran one that was running on all cylinders. And folks who think otherwise are, I suspect, about to get a rude awakening.
Maybe we should start a General Petraeus Firing Watch, heh :-).
– Badtux the Observant Penguin
MacArthur was vain, egocentric, and completely insubordinate. Truman didn’t have much choice but to fire him (and had always rubbed the sometimes-prickly Truman wrong).
Comrade Kevin´s last blog post..Hardly, David
MacArthur was a flawed individual, but after the first 40 years you tend to believe your own publicity. He did, however, have victories as a general in the two World Wars before he decided that he could make policy decisions, and a Congressional Medal of Honor and 7 Silver Stars to vouch for his courage. Petraeus is a bit short on the experience and honors, but it doesn’t take much to impress politicians who were AWOL or had other priorities.
If he expects to retire on the pay of a four-star, he had better learn to offer his advise only to those cleared to hear it, and save his politicking for retirement.
I don’t doubt his bravery butMacArthur always struck me as haveing even more of a monstrous ego than the typical general and that is a huge ego!
jams O’Donnell´s last blog post..Ode to a mammoth cheese
Dwight Eisenhower was once asked if he knew MacArthur and replied: “Know him? I studied dramatics under him for seven years!”
Yes, MacArthur had a larger ego than even Patton or Montgomery, two other generals who had publicity staffs.
I recently started thinking that perhaps Obama should take a page from Truman.
I loved his message that stimulus is spending — for those in Congress who needed a clue.
Scorpio´s last blog post..A Good Fix
He needs to start hammering on some people and start sending out surrogates to the media shows. The GOP is sucking up all the air time with their message.
Let’s forget all of the wasted effort on “bipartisanship” and do what needs to be done.