Men of Retroaction

Drawing by Ted Rall.

Everybody's on this one from Fiorina just because it's hilarious, but I don't think all the juice has been squeezed out of it yet; there are a few details that haven't been adequately mocked, and a large point of particular significance to the Rectification audience:

to wage war, we need a commander in chief who has made tough calls in tough times and stood up to be held accountable over and over, not first-term senators who've never made an executive decision in their life.

One of the things I would immediately do, in addition to defeating them here at home, is bring back the warrior class -- Petraeus, McChrystal, Mattis, Keane, Flynn. Every single one of these generals I know. Every one was retired early because they told President Obama things that he didn't want to hear.

A lot of people out there are reporting that General Petraeus retired from the Army because of his conviction (reduced to misdemeanor from felony charges when he copped a plea) for passing classified information to his girlfriend-biographer, but this is incorrect; he retired in 2011 to take up Obama's offer of a job as Director of Central Intelligence (that's the job he was fired from for the security-violating hanky-panky). So what he told President Obama that President Obama didn't want to hear must have been, "Sure, I'll take the job." Oh, and Obama still does listen to Petraeus, sadly.

West of Eden: Throwing up Hurdles

In a medieval Persian Megillat Esther, the queen negotiates with the king over the status of the Jews, while Haman, back left, tries to torpedo the deal.

Ex-Advisers Warn Obama That Iran Nuclear Deal ‘May Fall Short’ of Standards

So runs the headline of a story by David Sanger in yesterday's Times, and the first paragraph goes on to tell us,

President Obama’s inner circle of Iran advisers have written an open letter expressing concern that a pending accord to stem&nbspIran’s nuclear program “may fall short of meeting the administration’s own standard of a ‘good’ agreement” and laying out a series of minimum requirements that Iran must agree to in coming days for them to support a final deal.

The bad faith of this opening is just astounding. The letter, as you can see by looking at it, was not written by "five former members of Obama's circle of Iran advisers" but by a "Bipartisan Group of American Diplomats, Legislators, Policymakers, and Experts", 19 in all, of whom

General Dismay

Macaulay registration for the spring semester was November 12, but somehow this class hasn't gotten closed yet!

Visiting Professor David Petraeus’s Spring 2014 Course

There are still slots available for this unique opportunity. Dr. David Petraeus, Visiting Professor at Macaulay Honors College, will be teaching a Spring 2014 seminar. "Are We on the Threshold of the (North) American Decade?" will examine the developments that could position the United States—and its North American partners—to lead the world out of the current global economic slowdown. This course will focus on diverse subjects: energy, life sciences, manufacturing and information technology.

Dr. Petraeus received his Ph.D. from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. He later served as Assistant Professor at the United States Military Academy and also completed a fellowship at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service.

Dr. Petraeus is looking for students from any area of interest with an appetite for reading and synthesizing large quantities of technical information. Students will work together to determine the policies and practices that will best enable the United States to capitalize upon the present opportunities. Excellent writing and presentation skills are a must, as is the ability to work well as part of a team.

Bold in original. Definitely not as snooty as Brooksie at Yale. And you'll be helping (North) America capitalize on those opportunities!

My inside source tells me everybody she knows who took Dr. Petraeus's fall class thought it was really interesting. Well, she does in fact know one.

And in the spring the class will be meeting in an undisclosed location! Via Business Insider.

Sixteen Scandals (continued)

David Brooks can tell a perfectly lucid story, you know, when he feels like it, especially when it's more or less true—truthfulness being a good writer's most elegant technique for achieving verisimilitude, though little appreciated.

Mosaic from Leptis Magna, Libya, via Mosaik.

Not that he's off the hook for today—in fact he turns out to be more than usually slimy—but truthful lucidity is one of the things he does with his column on Victoria Nuland, the State Department spokeswoman at the center of the BENGHAZI! scandal, as some have called it:

Cheap shots and expensive lifestyles

De Sacha Guitry à Diane Arnaud.

Please tell me David Petraeus with his visiting professor gig at the Macaulay Honors College, City University of New York, isn't burnishing his academic credentials for that presidential run (perhaps it could be a bipartisan Joint ticket with Anthony Wiener). Washington Post:

Petraeus has a doctorate from Princeton University and has written widely on international relations, military strategy and tactics and national security issues.

He says in a statement released by Macaulay he’s pleased to teach at the college, where most students are children of immigrants. He says he looks forward to leading a seminar on the global economic slowdown.

It would be cool to have one of those certified Serious people out there recommending a fiscal Surge on the Sunday morning shows, though I guess around five years [jump]

Evolving views

Oh, you conservatives, you're such ethical relativists!

From Geisha School Dropout.

Cal Thomas, 12/14/2011:

Cal: There has long been a debate in Washington about private behavior and public integrity. Some have argued they can be a lout in private but a stand-up person in public. I disagree. You can't put on integrity like a coat after taking it off to be with someone to whom you are not married. Who you are in the dark is what you are in the light.

Bob: So you're saying that a bachelor president, for example, is persona non grata if he has sex with his girlfriend?

Cal: Let me put it this way: If I am looking for a financial adviser, I am less concerned about how he behaves privately than I am about his ability to help me make money in this economy. Unless, of course, he cheats on his wife and cheats me, too. I just find it difficult to accept you can be one thing in private and another in public.

Cal Thomas, 10/4/2012:

Let’s pick another word – “fornication” – and consider its definition: “voluntary sexual intercourse between two unmarried persons or two persons not married to each other.”

It’s an old-fashioned word that has fallen out of favor, but doesn’t it describe Schwarzenegger’s behavior better than “mistake”?

Perhaps the saddest moment in the “60 Minutes” interview with Lesley Stahl is a video of Schwarzenegger’s wife, Maria Shriver, defending him when he was accused of groping several women.

Schwarzenegger’s interviews reveal a man without a moral center.

Cal Thomas, 11/15/2012:

The resignation of CIA Director David Petraeus over an extramarital affair has raised and will continue to raise a number of questions.

First among them (OK, maybe not first, national security being more important, but stay with me) is why should he have resigned? I am always amused when journalists use the words "sex scandal" when writing about such things. Having abandoned most standards for what used to be called "upright behavior," culture now "tsk-tsks" when someone is caught in a compromising position....

Wouldn't it be helpful to have a guidebook? Are there separate guidelines for military and civilian personnel? Should it be tied to one's security clearance? If the secretary of agriculture, say, is engaged in an adulterous relationship, would that be a lesser offense than adultery by the CIA director, or the secretary of defense? Should one stay in office and the others resign?

What would Carrie Bradshaw advise?

I'm not sure about Carrie, but it's conceivable she could have ended up with Schwarzenegger. Then again she kind of likes a moral center or am I thinking of chocolates? Miranda would have totally fallen for the FBI guy, though, and then regretted it. Really, they have nothing in common.

Anonymous Quickmeme, after a 1793 self-portrait by Joseph Ducreux.

Cheap shots 11/16

Erick the Drastick looking for true conservative candidates on the Jersey shore.  Pompier art by Evariste-Vital Luminais (1897).

Erick Erickson at RedState brings out the big guns:

I think it is incumbent on each and every conservative and conservative organization, with this deadline upon us, to make a very simple pledge:
We will not support the re-election of any Republican Governor who creates a healthcare exchange in his or her state. Further, we will oppose for the nomination to the Presidency, any Republican who creates a healthcare exchange in his or her state.

In fact, I will go first.
Should any Republican Governor set up a health care exchange in his or her state, I’ll support their primary challenger and I sure will not support him or her for President in 2016.

Tremble, governors! Save us from the cholerick Norsemen!

Jan Huling, Poopyhead (or possibly Poppyhead). From  Society for Contemporary Craft.

Grover Norquist:

"The president was committed; elected on the basis that he was not Romney and Romney was a poopy head and you should vote against Romney and he won by two points," Norquist said on CBS' "This Morning" Monday. "But he didn't make the case that we should have higher taxes and higher spending, he kind of sounded like the opposite."

Why has the White House not come out to deny calling Romney a poopy head? What are they trying to hide?

Succubus (uncredited), from ViciousMim.

For some reason, the Washington Post wants us to know that Petraeus was fully conscious:

“Obviously, he knew about the relationship for months, he knew about the affair, he was in it, so yes, he was not going to resign,” said Peter Mansoor, a retired Army colonel and Petraeus’s executive officer during the Iraq “surge,” who spoke Monday with the former general for about half an hour. “But once he knew it was going to go public, he thought that resigning was the right thing to do. There is no way it would have remained private.”

But how many months did he know about it? When did he first become suspicious that he might be having an affair? What was the confirming evidence?

Douche.

Most utterly douche proposed explanation:

The Man Called Petraeus had an extramarital affair because his wife was hanging out with Elizabeth Warren (should have been home polishing his medals with the hem of her négligée).

Maybe if Holly Petraeus spent a little less time at the CPFB.......
— Michael Goldfarb (@thegoldfarb) November 9, 2012

Elizabeth Warren and her homewrecking staffers not even in Washington yet and already threatening national security.
— Michael Goldfarb (@thegoldfarb) November 9, 2012

Paul Ryan, numbers guy:

"The numbers we were looking at looked like we stood a pretty good chance of winning. So, when the numbers came in, going the other direction. When we saw the turnout that was occurring in urban areas that were unprecedented, it did come as a bit of a shock. So, those are the toughest losses to have -- the ones that catch you by surprise." 
-- Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), in an interview with WISN-TV.

Not a word guy, at any rate. Or not when he attempts to come up with phrases that are unprecedented.

"Hello my name is the count, and they call me this because i love to count, Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah Ah" . By xxMysticalxx, at DeviantArt.