"and incredibly juvenile"

You're talking about a grown man who makes his living wearing makeup and playing make-believe in front of cameras with dialog other people wrote for him, in clothes that other people dressed him in.

I agree with you Chris. But you are also functionally describing every president of the United States since Calvin Coolidge.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

An odd fact about Reagan--one that people consistently refuse to believe, even though it's found in multiple biographies, even those made before he was in politics--is that he almost never had to wear makeup either in Hollywood or in front of cameras as President.

He had a skin tone that made him always look like he had a slight tan, and a naturally ruddy look to his face. Indeed, I wonder at times if he didn't have a case of rosacea, that happened to center only on his cheeks. Because he always looked like he had a tan on, and always had red glowing cheeks. Always.

Several sources independently confirm that he never dyed his hair either. Including a reporter who, attempting to get to the bottom of the matter, stole some barber clippings off the floor and had them analyzed. No dye.

Harry Truman of course never had to dress up for the cameras, and didn't much try. Indeed his biggest challenge was getting people not to quote his most nasty foul-mouthed utterances.

Eisenhower used to babble so badly at times that no one could make out what the hell he'd said. Sometimes he seemed to do it almost on purpose.

So, I dunno. Image is part of leadership. Always has been, always will be. Style's different these days, but at base I'm not sure it's all that different today.

Dean, All Tim Robbins proved in his pompous address to the National Press Club is that he is a pompous ass of the first order. He incorrectly believes somebody is censoring him. But who? Well, let me tell you there is nobody censoring Tim Robbins. People may be laughing at him, but not censoring him. Millions of Americans viewed what he publicly said repeatedly. Therefore, nobody is censoring Tim Robbins. He is simply pompously pontificating.

Please note the being a liberal in America means never having to prove anything you say. All that is required of these celebrities is that they say some stupid thing in public. I guess Tim Robbins and all the other thin-skinned Hollywoody types have yet to learn that freedom is a two way street.

"Freedom of speech is not freedom from criticism." That is it in a nutshell. Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, Janeane Garofalo, and Bill Mahr seem to think that they have a right to say anything they want, and the rest of us have to sit there and take it. Isn't that the way "free speech" worked in Iraq prior to April 9, 2003?

If you want to state your opinion, you ought to be honest and fair enough to accept people's counterarguments. The problem with Robbins and his friends is that they live in a community where everyone thinks the same and rubberstamps everything the other says. Once they leave their gilded cocoon, they are unable to cope with the actual diversity of opinion that's out there in the world.

And what makes his whining worse is that he is doing it on nationally prominent platforms like the National Press Club, which puts the lie to his contention that he is being censored.

What really is at issue for Robbins et al. is that they lost the argument, not that they have been repressed.

One more comment: Based on his speech, Robbins seems to think that our anti-terrorism strategy should have been to go and clean up a park or take adult ed classes. Boy, that really would have shown Osama bin Laden: If you attack us, we will go to night school.

Oh, I don't know about image being part of leadership. I would have hoped it were the other way around. (But notice that I use the subjunctive here.)

You're right about "Ike" babbling. I remember reading once that MacArthur referred to him as the "apotheosis of mediocrity", watching him in action after Eisenhower was one of his key staff officers in the Phillipines in the mid-1930s.

My favorite in the last century was President Calvin Coolidge. They say he used to sit in the Oval Office, politely and silently waiting for visitors to talk their way through whatever grand scheme they wanted to bring to his attention. He would then ask if they had anything more to add, and turn back to his papers until they took the hint and left his office.

This was the president who replied, in response to some plan for having the government play a larger role in US everyday life:

"The business of America is business".

An urban legend has it that on one social occasion, a woman sitting next to him at a banquet table gushed: "I bet I could get you to say more than two words to me, Mr President."

Silent Cal, without turning a hair, replied:

"You lose."

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

Indeed [Truman's] biggest challenge was getting people not to quote his most nasty foul-mouthed utterances.

Actually I don't think that bastard Harry Truman gave two shits about what the sons of bitches in the press thought of his language.

It was Bess he was worried about.

Ara,

Harry S Truman stopped caring about what the press thought or said about him the day he fired General Douglas MacArthur as supreme commander, US Armed Forces Far East and de-facto emperor of Japan, in April 1951, after MacArthur played his grand imperial poobah routine one time too many.

Captain Harry S Truman, commander of Battery D, 129th Field Artillery in the AEF in France in 1918, didn't pretend to be one of the world's foremost military geniuses. But he knew prima donnas when he saw them, both from his days as a farmer, smalltime shop owner and local political figure in Missouri, and as commander in chief of the armed forces. The staged tricks that MacArthur got away with in dealing with Roosevelt in World War II didn't work with Truman, who was simple, direct, unsentimental and blunt.

I remember that year quite well, including the tornado of opinion whipped up against Truman after MacArthur got the ax. Anyway, it only lasted a short time until the American public got tired of Mac's posturing (trench coat, gold-braided cap, eagle eye, and always parading around standing up in convertibles).

I thought MacArthur was a remarkable American statesman, and indeed a great military commander. But just like Abraham Lincoln dealing with another military prima donna -- George McClellan -- the military must always remain under the authority of the civil government and not the other way around. So Truman was right. Even if I didn't support Democrats then any more than I do now.

The irony of all this is that MacArthur probably would have made a better president than Eisenhower did. There ought to have been a reversal of their roles. Ike was a high quality military planner. As chief of the war plans section of the US Army's command staff, Eisenhower basically put together the fundamental overall strategy and operational plan for the army in the days immediately following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in early December 1941. He and George Marshall, the chief of staff, saw to it that this was carried out, even against frequent resistance by strong personalities such as MacArthur, Churchill, Montgomery and numerous others. But as president, he was basically an amiable nonentity.

MacArthur, on the other hand, was truly an American proconsul in Japan from 1945 until 1951, and oversaw the complete reconstruction of that country. But his military campaign in Korea all but fell into disaster when he pushed the US armed forces all the way to the Yalu River on the Chinese border in November 1950. This led directly to the massive intervention of Chinese armies that crossed the borders in overwhelming strength and all but trapped large segments of our forces there in terrible winter conditions.

But I'm not sure you wanted to read all this ancient history, did you Ara?

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

Arnold, I'm 100% with you, until you say that "MacArthur was a ... great military commander."

That man managed to screw up more times in 10 years than most generals can in a lifetime.

First, he counted on the war not starting until April, 1942, in order to get the Philippine Army ready (and even then, we're talking 6 months of training). Depending on the other side to cooperate is not a good idea.

Next, he let his entire air force get caught on the ground at Clarke Field, despite the explicit warnings from Pearl. Worse yet, he was still fixating on keeping the Philippines neutral! Not to mention the mix-up where the Navy wasn't talking to the Army about intelligence; the Navy already had photos of Japanese bases on Formosa, but the Army was worrying about getting recon intelligence after December 8...

Next came the "defense of Manila" fiasco. The original War Plan envisioned falling back to Corregidor immediately. Instead, McArthur tried to defend the entire island. By trying to keep everything, he instead lost everything. Once they got back to Corregidor there wasn't nearly enough supplies to support the troops. A definite pooch-screw all the way around. And let's not forget how he got his nickname "Dugout Dug"...

His march back north was pretty much was what the Japanese anticipated. They (the Japanese) felt that it would take the US years to fight through the spiderweb of defenses that the Empire had scattered through the South Pacific. They also thought that these defenses would keep American bombers far enough away from Japan so that the US would have to clear each island one by one, and that this would discourage the US from fighting the war to a finish. Lest some shallow readers decry this policy, I have to point out that the "Vietnam Syndrome" was not limited to that conflict. Americans -as has been pointed out in other threads on this blog- are willing to put up with large casualty lists, but only if apparent progress is being made. Note the mood of the country during the political campaign of 1864: Lincoln fully expected to lose the election due to voter dissatisfaction with the (apparent) course of the war.

So the Japanese planners weren't too far off the mark when they expected that their war plans would force the US to a negotiated peace. What they didn't anticipate (and what McArthur had no right to expect) was the tremendous industrial increase during 1941-1945, which led not only to a second offensive through the Central Pacific, but to the B-29 as well. Once the Allied forces reached Guam, the war was as good as won.

Something similar happened in Korea. Everyone was caught flat-footed by the first NK offensive, even McArthur. What most folks don't know is that it was the Navy that brainstormed and implemented the Inchon landings, not "Mac". And once the UN forces came close to the China border, ol' "Mac" completely refused to listen to any intelligence that contradicted his evaluation of the situation. (note that this was not limited to McArthur; ignoring good intel is an ancient and honorable tradition [g])

After the Chinese intervened, he even went public with suggestions to use nuclear weapons, in an area that had no relation to vital US interests!! The man just didn't know when to shut up.

But. Given all that... McArthur was a very capable leader in that he could build a very strong staff and give them good direction. He could learn from his mistakes and had a healthy grasp of the use of air power that was in advance of much contemporary thought.

Add to this his "face" -his reputation- as he (in the public mind) strode across the Pacific, dealing hammer blows to the Empire of Japan, his adopted persona as the Vindicator of the West exclaiming "I shall return!", and his near-operatic concern for personal prestige (again, "face"), I must conclude that he was probably the best humanly possible choice to act as Viceroy to Japan. I don't think anyone else could have brought that country forward from an industrial feudality to 20th century democracy.

McArthur once said that he wished that he would be judged, in the end, on his Viceroyalty in Japan. I am more than happy to grant him that.

But I feel that the above prelediction for the self-focused and the dramatic would have prevented him from being a good president. The very qualities that helped him in Japan would hurt him in the US. He was an aristocrat.

Arnold:

I was just amused to note that you correctly used Harry Truman's middle initial

Casey,

MacArthur had some brilliant strategic insights. Although he was trained as a ground commander and was the youngest US infantry division commander in World War I, he quickly realized early in World War II that tactical air power had become the decisive force both in ground campaigns and, almost more importantly, in resupply of scattered ground units in primitive areas such as New Guinea and the myriad of islands in the Southwest Pacific theater of operations.

This was the basis for his brilliant campaign in the Southwest Pacific Theater of operations, in which the US forces, along with allied Australian units, grabbed weakly-defended Jap positions where airfields could be set up, hundreds of miles away from the main bases in northern Australia. These were then used to isolate large Jap garrisons such as at Rabaul, which were left to wither on the vine, literally, while MacArthur took his forces northward in long jumps, back toward the Phillipines.

Mac also had the common sense to appoint top-notch subordinates who were not afraid to innovate. His appointment of General George Kenney as commander of what became the 5th US Army Air Force in the summer of 1942 reflected that. Kenney, a mininuitive Canadian-American air officer, rightfully called "Buccaneer", was one of the best improvisers in American military history.

Kenney got the idea of converting the B25 "Mitchell" light bombers that were being shipped to our forces based in Australia into twin-engine fighter-bombers. To accomplish this, he stripped the .50 caliber machine guns out of the wings the numerous wrecked or damaged P40 fighter planes scattered around the north Australian bases and had these installed eight at a time in the noses of the B-25s.

That, plus some souped-up engines, turned the B-25 into one of the most ferocious combat aircraft in World War II. They surely must have been noseheavy, but the pilots got them off the ground even on short impromptu runways, just as Lt Col Jimmy Doolittle got them off the deck of the USS Hornet for the first Tokyo air raid in April 1942. Imagine the firepower of eight big 50s all zeroed in on the same target, and in 1942-1943, yet! That plane was more or less the Warthog of its era.

Add to that the fact that Kenney was an early advocate of "skip" bombing, in which bombs would be dropped almost like torpedoes, at just the right height and distance from Japanese supply ships and light combat vessels, then slam into the sides of the enemy ships. The combination of the nose mounted firepower, the skip bombing tactics, and an assist from some squadrons of high-altitude B-17 "Flying Fortress" heavy bombers using precision bombsights, all contributed to the virtual destruction of a Jap fleet of escorted troopships in the battle of the Bismarck Sea in February 1943. Kenney woke up MacArthur in the middle of the night to phone him the complete report of this overwhelming and historic victory, and Mac replied:

"Good work, Buccaneer!"

In late summer 1942, MacArthur had to move troops and equipment up from northern Australia to some bases around Port Moresby in southeastern New Guinea. In a real hurry. Everything was to depend on sea shipping to bring in the heavy stuff. But then Kenney solved MacArthur's problem, telling him he could have ground crews cut up heavy trucks in half with acetylene torches, load the halves in transport aircraft, then re-weld them at the New Guinea end. Messy? You betcha. Did it work. You betcha.

As a general, MacArthur surely was not immortal. He won some of his early career promotions through his mother's well-placed Washington social connections. And even in World War I, it became clear that he did not relate well to higher authority. That fact was, he simply had to be the man in total charge wherever he was stationed, both in war and peace. But as a viceroy (or proconsul), depending if you prefer the Spanish or ancient Roman usage of what are really related leadership concepts, he was incomparable. He was frequently wrong in his tactical judgements, as in the early losing fight in the Phillipines or in the first year of the war in Korea. But his strategic concepts were incisive, he knew how to improvise when he had to, he picked some of the best subordinate commanders of the war, and he had leadership qualities that only infrequently show up in high ranking US military officers. Truly an American Caesar, as William Manchester termed him.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

Ara, the "S" in Harry S Truman's name stood for nothing in particular. All he had was a middle initial, no middle name. Or so I read somewhere. Once upon a time. At least his mama never turned him into a boy named Sue, as the old Johnny Cash song once had it.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

Arnold:

You used the "S" correctly -- no period, because, as you point out, it wasn't representative of any middle name in particular.

You might be interested in reading this piece from the Truman Library web site:

"In recent years the question of whether to use a period after the 'S' in Harry S. Truman's name has become a subject of controversy, especially among editors. The evidence provided by Mr. Truman's own practice argues strongly for the use of the period. ...

"Mr. Truman apparently initiated the "period" controversy in 1962 when, perhaps in jest, he told newspapermen that the period should be omitted. In explanation he said that the "S" did not stand for any name but was a compromise between the names of his grandfathers, Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young. He was later heard to say that the use of the period dated after 1962 as well as before. ..."

Ara,

Its nice that you agree with me, but you did so this time for the wrong reason. I don't EVER put a period after someone's middle initial. Note:

John F Kennedy
George W Bush
George H W Bush
Herbert H Hoover
Franklin D Roosevelt
Harry S Truman
James E Carter
Richard M Nixon

USA
FBI
CIA
IBM

I call this parsimonious punctuation. I truly couldn't have cared less about what Truman said about periods after a middle initial, even if I had known specifically what he said. I just don't write that way. In this sense, I am my own viceroy or proconsul. Just like MacArthur. As long as I am doing the writing.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

Truman himself used the period after his middle initial. Personally I would consider him the top authority on the matter.

Actually Casey did a fine job listing the many incompetent acts by MacArthur. About the only one he omitted was the poor treatment MacArthur meted out to the Australian troops under his command in New Guinea.

MacArthur pushed through the Inchon invasion. If it had not been for his determination it would not have happened. The Army and Air Force Chiefs of Staff did not want to send Marines to Korea and tried to prevent one of the 1st Marine Division's regiments from going. The Marines and Navy thought the site of the landing too risky and tried to get it moved south (it was terribly risky, in a few more days the NorKs would have laid mines in the channel). It was MacArthur's insistance that had the invasion at all and that had it at Inchon. Furthermore, he had visualized the plan from the start, as soon as he realized that the NorKs were going to push the US and ROK troops back to Pusan. He had a cadre of Marines training the 7th Infantry Division for the purpose early on, and it was at MacArthur's insistance that Marines were sent to Korea. This is discussed in Robert Heinl's book "Victory At High Tide" which covers the the Inchon landing and the subsequent Seoul Campaign.

...and now back to our regularly scheduled post:

No doubt I am going to bring class (read: wealth) into this discussion. If you have wealth/fame/political power in America, you have more "freedom" of speech or rather, you have the power to speak and influence people. No one really cares what Tim Snyder's of San Angelo, TX views are regarding the war, the economy, or the shrinking pygmy jungles due to llama ranch expansion because I only earn $48,000 a year and don't appear on television. I have enjoyed almost every movie with Tim Robbins and/or Susan Sarandon, and I don't plan to boycott their movies, I also don't place much credibility in their analysis of the global "situation."

To borrow and paraphrase from the movie "Remains of the Day" (not starring either of the above mentioned performers) an American millionaire senator played by Christopher Reeves addressing a gathering of European socialites prior to WWII chastises the group that thinks it can solve the "problem" with Hitler with a gentlemen's agreement:

"..with all due repsect gentlemen, you are all amateurs! The issues we are dealing with cannot be solved using our old courtesies. You have to leave these challenges to the professionals."

Afterward, he proposes a toast: "To the professionals."

I am thankful that we've got professionals working on the issues and not a bunch of amateurs.

Let the amateurs talk, gyrate, chain themselves to a sewer grate, but dammit, let the professionals get on with business...

- "You know, for kids."

Tim

Arnold, I think we agree on the major points. If you notice, I did remark that he had a healthy grasp of air power, and could build a strong staff. Also, as you say, he could learn... Ditto for ability as Viceroy/Proconsul; he truly was incomparable.

But it still irks me that he could make some of the mistakes he did in early Korea. Ah, well, those who can, do; those who can't, post on weblogs, no? :)

I still disagree that he would have been a better president than Eisenhower, for precisely the same reasons that he was a great Proconsul. Then again, the class of "generals turned President" generally tend to mediocrity, Washington very much excepted.

Thanks for the new info about the B-25 gunships. I had general knowledge about that model; it is one of the most destructive gunships that the Army Air Force has ever fielded, excepting the Warthog and Spooky/Spectre. I didn't know they had "souped up" engines, nor was I aware of Kenney's trick of the "welded trucks"! :)) Talk about "improvise, overcome", sheesh. I'm reminded of an old "Murphy's" Law of war: if it's stupid, and it works, then it's not stupid.

The only problem with the Battle of the Bismark Sea was that the Japanese never even thought of trying to move a surface resupply column through Allied-controlled airspace during daylight the rest of the war. They learned too bloody quick.

Speaking of "improvise & overcome" and messy: I'm curious about your opinion of the Clint Eastwood movie "Heartbreak Ridge"...

Robin:

I would prefer the term "screw up" to "incompetent." The former implies poor judgement, while the latter implies a lack of ability. And as Arnold pointed out, the man was capable of learning from his mistakes (usually) and building a talented staff.

And, yes, he was pretty hard on the Aussies. But when you look at the discussion between Arnold and I, as well as the record, are you surprised? The men "down under" are at least as eglatarian as Americans, and MacArthur was anything but. :)

The 5th US Army Air Force in World War II, along with the remarkable General George Kenney lives on in my head as long as I shall live, because I was a child of the great global war.

But the specific information about the modified B25 twin-engine bombers that Kenney's guys turned into most one of the most ferocious ground and sea attack airplanes of the war came from Steve Birdsall's fine 1977 history, "Flying Buccaneers, the Illustrated Story of Kenney's Fifth Air Force". Birdsall's book contained an introduction written by George Kenney himself, so you know it was the real McCoy.

The details on the multimount .50 caliber machine guns in the noses of the B25s; the legendary skip bombing tactics; the torch-cutting of the truck bodies and frames so they could be airlifted up to New Guinea, and their rewelding back into trucks down on the ground in the jungle; the air strike that destroyed a Jap resupply fleet in the Bismarck Sea -- all this and a lot more you'll find in Steve Birdsall's history. Along with some fine color illustrations of the blood-curdling skulls/crossboones and shark's teeth painted by the squadrons on the aircraft noses and tails.

About the Aussies and their role in the war. They loyally came aboard World War II with Great Britain in the war against Nazi Germany, as the similarly did in the Boer War and World War I. The Anzacs (don't forget New Zealand) made a major contribution to the North African campaign, and that's where most of their mobilized troops were when the Japs simultaneously attacked Hawaii, Wake, the Phillipines, Malaya, and the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia).

In early 1942, after nearly all the southwest Pacific area had been conquered by Japan, Australia and New Zealand were the only safe bases left from which the inevitable reconquest effort could be made against Japan. And the United States was the only country that had the manpower, war supplies and shipping to turn Australia into a smaller scale version of the great forward area base that Britain itself became in the months leading up to Operation Overlord in June 1944 -- the invasion of Europe.

In the meantime, northern Australia was under attack from Japanese air fleets and had to be defended against threatened invasion. This meant that the US armed forces had to move into the lives of Australians in a manner that was all but guaranteed to grate on their nerves. Aussies are not the kind of people you want to try shoving around. To their very great credit, they lived with the situation without too much fuss until the war moved northward by 1944.

And where their men fought the Jap forces in the jungles of southeast Asia -- as they did in dozens of campaigns in the east indies that never make it into the American history books of this theater of war -- the Aussie troops fought with the ferocity and calm courage that has always characterized the Anglo-Saxon, Scots, Welsh and Irish peoples.

So don't get too upset if they got pissed on occasion because of the frequent posturing of the American Caesar.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

Casey,

That last post was directed to your attention, but I forgot my user header.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

Well Tim, I make less than you--in fact, I wish I were making the kind of money you make, and I'm older than you--and yet, I still get to vote, I still get to write letters to my congresscritter, and I can, for nothing but the price of an internet connection, start up a weblog and publish anything I want.

Independent voices are heard more and more all the time, and are exerting a strong influence on the mainstream press and elsewhere. Which I consider all to the good.

Earth to Dean, Earth to Dean...

We left old Tim and his bullshit parade back about 22 comments ago, didn't we? What is this, the week of the resurrection of half-buried Hollywood quasithinkers?

This vaguely reminds of the Hebrews versus the Amelekites, who, because of their perfidy or whatever, the Jews are forever enjoined to wipe out from the memory of mankind. Or something like that. So what do those guys get? Once a year, the orthodox rabbis read a section of the Tora that talks about nothing but the damned Amelekites.

(How's that for wiping them out from the memory of mankind?)

Oh, well, chase old Tim (and Sue too) all the way to hell if you want. But as for me, I get my Sunday morning jollies expanding the Encyclopedia Harrisica that I have to carry around in my head 24/7, so I welcome diversions that carry me away from total focus on my pet peaves.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

Dean,

I thought we were the same age. We both know that we don't define success as the amount of money we earn each year.

I have experienced some censorship in my job during the last few years (I am a Clinton democrat serving in the military.) During the Clinton years, it was typical of my co-workers to openly criticize the president (although I never observed any officers falling into this category). As the token liberal (well, there are a few others in my office.) I took their insults on Clinton and democrats like a mature professional soldier and gave as good as I got.
But when Dubya took office, people around me (republicans) did not take too kindly to my critical jabs at the president even though I openly and honestly have supported him 100% on the war on terrorism and Iraq. My complaints have mostly been on his domestic agenda, and yet anything I say that is critical of any part of his administration is met with anger and harsh words. However, I find myself rather amused at their hypocrisy and almost always win debates with them....(probably because they only listen to Rush Limbaugh and don't read Dean's world).

Dean's World is one of my greatest sources of inspiration and motivation to keep on defending this great nation of ours.

Would it surprise you that two of the people I admire most are Dean Esmay and James Carville?

Tim (not Robbins)

btw, enlisted personal are free to speak their minds as long as they are not speaking from an official point of view wheareas commissioned officers are prohibited from criticizing the commander-in-chief.

My complaints have mostly been on his domestic agenda, and yet anything I say that is critical of any part of his administration is met with anger and harsh words.

I hope you will deal with this philosophically. In a war--I mean a big deal, serious war that the whole nation is focused on intensely--there is an inevitable "rally around the CIC" urge that is, ultimately, probably healthy even though it has its negative side.

Military guys, I don't have to tell you, have an intense love of country and desire to see us win, and are going to be more defensive of the CIC when the whole country is involved in some heavy shit. I mean, no one's denigrating Kosovo, or Somalia, but these were not conflicts that made the entire nation sit up and thing, "the future of our whole country's at stake."

Rightly or wrongly, that is how they've seen the current conflict, and so I expect military guys--who I love, including you Tim--are going to have an instinctive defensiveness about the CIC that is more intense than normal.

That said, military guys have long liked Republicans better, for a variety of reasons. So I think you're probably getting some shit there that you shouldn't. I'm just saying, I hope you don't get super-cynical and pin it all on that. The War on Terror is a bigger deal than anything we did in the 1990s, and so feelings are gonna be a lot more intense.

Dean's World is one of my greatest sources of inspiration and motivation to keep on defending this great nation of ours.

[sniff] I love you, man!

Would it surprise you that two of the people I admire most are Dean Esmay and James Carville?

I try to avoid the partisanship that is Carville's raison-dêtre. That said, I have always respected him, and usually found him worth listening to even when he annoyed the hell out of me. So I take this as high praise, in the spirit it was probably intended in.

Tim, what do you do in the military?