Powell's mistake was to throw himself in with this lot in the first place. He lost every bit of cred he got in Nam. And actually, he wasn't that good a commander.

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gee...is this a novel idea? generals and admirals as political creatures...who woulda thunk it?

what would be much more interesting is analyzing the degree to which Flags have been politicized by the craven beltway crowd in the last decade or so...be it executive, legislative or judicial.

without delving into details....I am personally familiar with white house meddling during the Clinton years on an important policy position being staffed by one of the Services - before the Service could even route the covering document through proper military channels to more senior leadership. this kinda puts the whole Patraeus spitballing in perspective for me.

Congress and the media have so thoroughly politicized the professional military - especially at the Flag level - that one has to ask: where should the mirror really be pointed?

shaping the message as something unique to the white house or the military...bahahahahahahahahaaha

I deeply resent your misguided and mean-spirited attack on Partisans. I lived in Paris for 20 years, and I found the people there to be kind, generous, and loyal friends and neighbors. They fought with us in World War II, and they are still grateful for the military aid and support the U.S. sent to them in their time of need. People of Paris take a lot of crap for their attitude, and their sophistication, but enough is enough!

If senior military officers want to be Partisans, I say let them!

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http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2298.shtml

Bush's booming economy . . . for the rich

By Sheila Samples
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Aug 14, 2007, 00:21

Sometimes I'm amazed at how much I know about the financial markets and the economy. I don't understand any of it, but I know a lot of stuff, thanks to my friend and mentor, Richard Walrath, who's been to the market more than once. He says when George W. Bush brags that the economy is booming, he's probably right. The economy is exploding with a big boom, and Walrath says now we are engaged in a great battle to see how long this country can endure.

The Fed just poured a bunch of money into the market, which was news to me, but Walrath said the Fed has been manipulating the market for years, especially during the Bush years.

"There was great fear the United States was going to follow Japan into a period of deflation and recession -- maybe even a depression," Walrath said. "Interest rates were cut close to zero while hundreds of billions of dollars were added to the National Debt through tax cuts for the rich and 'Big Bidness.' And it gets worse just at the time the National Debt limit has to be raised again."

With things as bad as they are, Walrath says it's going to be interesting to see how this crisis is handled. Congress may have to return early to pass legislation to raise the National Debt. But it makes more sense to me, since the bulk of our lawmakers were so eager to get out of school for recess, that Bush could decide to handle the whole thing like he does everything else to avoid partisan jawboning or oversight -- just dash off an Executive Order.

But the National Debt is just one of many problems battering our economy. Walrath points out a major problem is "all those margin accounts out there with people getting calls to come up with some real money because their stock is down. As you might expect, this led to speculation in housing -- let's flip it -- and millions of people who couldn't afford to pay their rent bought houses."

Wait a minute . . . Let's flip it? What does that mean? Nothing comes to mind -- okay one thing does -- but Walrath never takes such a cavalier attitude about economics.

Let's flip it, Walrath says is when "--you buy the house with no intention of ever living in it. You add a kitchen, spruce up a bathroom, and 'flip' it, or put it back on the market, hoping to make a profit.

This goes on all the time, Walrath says, but there were more flippers than buyers this time around because it cost almost nothing to own a house while you were waiting to sell it. That's subprime credit. You could buy a house with no money down, no income, no job, no assets.

Of course! Now I understand. If you buy a house with no money down, you have little or nothing invested. Just walk away. Let the banks worry about selling them.

But to whom will banks sell them? What are the banks going to do? "That's why houses for sale are now piling up all over the country," Walrath said. "It's a terrible situation."

Donald Trump begs to differ. When you're in a hole, keep digging as hard and as fast as you can. Trump's advice, according to Walrath is to "just go back and make another deal with whoever holds the mortgage. Trump says you'll get a better deal this time than the one you had before. Don't walk away from it -- go make another deal. The last thing the bank wants is your house. What are they going to do with it? They can't find anybody to buy it."

So, who's flipping whom in this credit seizure?

According to an unsigned editorial in Saturday's Wall Street Journal, the root cause of this credit correction was the Federal Reserve's willingness to keep money too easy for too long.

The Journal warns an "emergency rate cut, as some in the market seem to be anticipating or hoping for -- carries the risk of introducing even greater moral hazard into the financial system."

We can't have immorality in our financial system, now can we? Oh, the horror!

While chiding Democrats such as Senator Hillary Clinton for proposing a $1 billion federal bailout fund for homeowners at risk of default and foreclosure, the Journal goes on to channel Barbara Bush's flash of morality when speaking of homeless Katrina victims -- "No one wants to see someone lose his home to foreclosure. But many of those most at risk bought their homes with little or no money down, and so have very little at stake economically. Bringing in the feds to bail them out would send precisely the wrong message -- that risky or overly aggressive borrowing will be rewarded by the government rather than punished in the marketplace. To the extent that bad loans were made, the market needs to clear, not be propped up by federal-aid programs."

Unfortunately, despite what the Journal and the endlessly bleating "Money Heads" on TV would have you believe, millions of Americans are in deep trouble. CNBC's Jim Cramer "flipped out" last week in a torrent of truth about the current economic situation.

Walrath agrees, and says if we continue in the direction we're headed, Bush's "boom" will make the Savings and Loan bailout look like a Girl Scout Cookie Sale.

According to Walrath, there are four sets of losers in this housing meltdown . . .

* Those caught with the homes they bought for flipping purposes are not going to be able to find buyers. They are going to lose whatever they have invested, plus whatever mortgage payments they make. It may be cheaper for them just to walk away.

* Those who own homes will see the value of their houses go down because of the current oversupply due to overbuilding when interest rates were lower and people were buying homes with little or nothing down with the idea of flipping the houses as soon as possible.

* Those who bought homes with variable-rate mortgages are having trouble making payments because those payments keep going up, and there's nothing they can do about it. Many did not even realize they had such a mortgage. Millions are going to lose their homes.

* And then, there's the murky many -- the banks and the hedge funds which ended up with mortgages used as collateral for junk bonds, which ended up as holdings by French and German and English banks, not to mention those in this country.

"This is the dog that worried the cat that killed the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built, and we ain't seen nothing yet," Walrath says.

"When it comes to saving the rich from losing money, no expense will be spared. Actually," Walrath mused, "the economy is good -- if you're rich. For the rest of us, there's not much to write home about."
Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma writer and a former civilian US Army Public Information Officer. She is a regular contributor for a variety of Internet sites. Contact her at rsamples@sirinet.net.

If you evaluate expertise by being in a position of authority, in the case of the military that means wearing stars on one's shoulders, then your piece is accurate as the political nature of the "experts." However, there is another way to measure expertise: promulgation and/or implementation of ideas that achieve positive results. By that measure, Gen. Petraeus' experience in Mosul qualifies him as an expert, along with James Mattis, James Gavrilis, Peter Chiarelli, H.R. McMaster and Sean MacFarland for their respective experiences in Tikrit, Ar Rutbah, Sadr City, Tal Afar and Ramadi. Outside of combat action, Conrad Crane and Andrew Terrill of the US Army War College issued a report before the war started which reasonably accurately described the situation in Iraq at that time as it would affect reconstruction, the potential pitfalls of reconstruction and the likely consequences of failing to address those pitfalls.

What would best serve public debate about Petraeus' upcoming report is if instead of playing "gotcha" about possible political motivations, we expand the circle of experts we consult. However, we should define expertise in terms of articulating a world view which explains both Iraq's descent into civil war and the successful pacification of Tal Afar among other successes within the war. Anyone, military or civilian, who passes such a test deserves our attention. Anyone who does not, including 4-star officers, does not.

I doubt very much that anything has changed with Karl Rove's resignation. It is very likely that he will still have the same relationship with the President as he has now.

His resignation was planned to take some of the heat off of him.
No change, however, in influence.

JB

"Flag officers today are political animals, just like everyone else in Washington. Like everyone else, they should be judged on their performance and their argument. They deserve no special consideration."

So in summary, professional warrior Patraeus` forthcoming evaluation of our miserable Iraq policing action is not to be trusted any more than assessments offered by the clueless Bush/Cheney or delusional Pelosi/Reid. Great.

Karl Rove?

It is apparent that General Petraeus, with his patently clean image, has become the new face on #43's war on the American side; #43 and Cheney must stay in the background in order for the American people to tolerate anymore of ill-advised war nonsense for another year.

The administration is trying to make the intervention and occupation of Iraq more palpable and palatable to the American public by removing all of the problem faces from the limelight.

Let's see, no more DeLay, Rumsfield, Sanchez, Powell, Condi is quiet and now even Rove will work in anonymity. If the strategy works, the public will overlook the fact that #43 and Cheney are still running the show, and will instead listen to General Petraeus, partisan or not.

It makes me think of the old show on television, Who Do You Trust? I know who I don't trust.

I will be very interested in hearing what the General has to say, for #43 is right about one thing - I trust Petraeus more than I trust #43 and Cheney combined - for the man does appear to have a soul. And that is something that is apparently lacking in the other two (Larry and Curly)!

Petraeus will likely be a presidential candidate (depending on how the war ends) in another decade - so he had better put on a good show. Yes, the Rev predicts that we will be watching a future presidential candidate. He could beat #43 now, if he were to run against him!

Long gone are the days when generals could argue their differences with civilians behind closed doors but walk back through them with deference to the policy chosen. Today, especially in this administration, if you want to keep your job--or even get it--all differences with civilians must be muted to the point of illusion. That, more likely than anything else got us into Iraq.

Powell's mistake was to throw himself in with this lot in the first place. He lost every bit of cred he got in Nam. And actually, he wasn't that good a commander.

Certainly, civilian control of the military is the law. However, if you are dealing with idiots, either civilian or military, they can really get you into trouble. My own view is that the job comes first, and the career is a secondary consideration. If some clueless individual has an agenda that doesn't match the facts on the ground, they can get you or your people killed. The mission comes first, the troops second, and loyalty to superiors comes in third. Of course, defending the country and the Constitution are over arching considerations. I like being successful, and you will fail big time, if you go along with stupid policy decisions.

Your analysis seems right on. Prime example of a partisan is Colin Powell. Rising quickly during the Contra affair in the Reagan years. Later Bush's mouth piece pushing for an Iraq war.

Partisan over honor defines not only Powell but this administration.