All Sides Agree...

...the press suck

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

H/T Neptunus Lex

Yeah, I know I posted the GEN Sherman quote before, but it never hurts to remind folks that the more things change the more the stay the same. The GEN Lee quote is really good as well. Seems both sides had something they could agree on.

Meanwhile in other un-reported news...we're still kicking ass

TR Tuesday, 1 MAY 2007

Mr. Roosevelt gives us his opinion of those who fly and fight...

The ordinary air fighter is an extraordinary man and the extraordinary air fighter stands as one in a million among his fellows.

— Theodore Roosevelt

And then we have these geniuses...

The cavalry, in particular, were not friendly to the aeroplane, which it was believed, would frighten the horses.

— Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh, 1910. (Note: This is not that other Sir Walter Raleigh, who was beheaded nearly three hundred years earlier!)

Another popular fallacy is to suppose that flying machines could be used to drop dynamite on an enemy in time of war.

— William H. Pickering, 'Aeronautics,' 1908.

To affirm that the aeroplane is going to 'revolutionize' navel warfare of the future is to be guilty of the wildest exaggeration.

— 'Scientific American,' 16 July 1910.

Aviation is fine as a sport. But as an instrument of war, it is worthless.

— General Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superiure de Guere, 1911.

It is not possible . . . to concentrate enough military planes with military loads over a modern city to destroy that city.

— US Colonel John W. Thomason Jr., November 1937

TR Tuesday, 27 FEB 07

Here's the TR quote of the day...

"Measure iniquity by the heart, whether a man's purse be full or empty, partly full or partly empty. If the man is a descent man, whether well off or not well off, stand by him; if he is not a decent man stand against him, whether he be rich or poor."

Bonus quote of the day is from General William T. Sherman...

"War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen, and I say let us give them all they want."