My brother is an army officer that is an absolute credit to the uniform, really lives the values that officers are supposed to live, and he will probably never make General. He’s stood by his men too often, passed up to many opportunities to kiss political ass in order to get the job done. In short, because he DOES have honor, loyalty, dedication … he’s not enough of a politician to make it beyond bird colonel.

And if you recognize that it’s possible for some Generals to be just as bad as the worst politician born … how on earth could you expect W *not* to FIND that guy that’ll do whatever he’s told, and install him in Patreus’s job? After all he’s done, don’t you recognize how utterly out of character it would be for bush to appoint somebody in that slot that would be competent, independant, and uncorruptable?

-me

Because Bush structured his dodge to focus on Petraeus..Petraeus wrote the book on counter-insurgencies, so who better can understand the insurgency in Iraq than Petraeus?
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For some reason I’m reminded of something I read on a bar napkin years ago that might apply to Bush.

You have only two thing to worry about.
Whether you live or whether you die.
If you live, you have nothing to worry about.
And if you die, you only have two things to worry about.
Whether you’re going to heaven or whether you’re going to hell. If you go to heaven, you have nothing to worry about.
And if you go to hell..you’ll be so busy saying hello to all your friends..you won’t have time to worry

Wasn’t the point of the ’surge’ – a 15 month-long surge is hardly a surge – to create a safety zone around the Iraqi ‘government’, which apparently has happened, so it could begin governing? It hasn’t so shouldn’t the lame-brains in charge be planning and talking about a different tactic? The faux-government doesn’t need a safety zone, its individual ministers etal need the huge profits they’re making off the status quo cut off yesterday.

My father, a former Coast Guard officer who does NOT support the Iraq war, reacted like “He took the same oath that I did and it really pisses me off to see these guys call him a traitor”. He disagrees with Patreus but he believes the general to be a man of integrity who is going to say what he truely believes, right or wrong, and finds the notion of calling him “Betray us” or that he is just a “tool of the Bush administration” to be an unwarranted smear.

Its an emotional reaction at heart, but I think its the reaction that will be common.

And ole “we weep and we mourn” Bush has as much love and respect for our troops as Joe Stalin had for his troops. Bush is not capable of sincerity. Remember his correspondents dinner routine…”They’re not under here!” Ha ha ha.