Stephen Green’s title was so apt that I had to steal it. He notes the NYT’s latest effort to discredit Gen. Petraeus in advance of his testimony is to point out that he is “politically astute.” (Via Instapundit.) Green observes that one doesn’t become a general without being politically astute, which is certainly true. (Being good at leading a war effort is optional.)
But I think it goes further than that. To lead a war effort effectively now requires politics, and it has at least since the Tet Offensive. North Vietnam discovered that the way to defeat America is not to win on the ground — which cannot be done — but to target the media and useful idiots in Congress. To win a war today (at least one lasting longer than the initial patriotic surge) requires political management, not just military management. Indeed, I suspect it has always been so, but the government used to hold a greater control over information that it does today.
Today’s Islamists have been playing by the very same playbook as North Vietnam, and the media are delighted to play their part. For a general today, political astuteness is not a negative (as the NYT implies), nor merely inevitable (as Green suggests), but an absolutely essential quality if we are to win. I suppose that’s why the NYT sees it as a negative.
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