Braxton Bragg on the wave
It seems to me that the best comment on
the 2014 mid-term elections came from General Braxton Bragg, C.S.A., who made
the comment in 1863. Reviewing the
outcome of the Battle of Missionary Ridge, a battle in which the Confederate
Army of Tennessee got its clock cleaned by the Union Army of the Cumberland, General Bragg
wrote to Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederate States that “the
disaster admits of no palliation and is justly disparaging to me as a commander.” He then spent the rest of the letter
explaining why the disaster wasn’t entirely his fault. I thought of this while watching the former
junior senator from Illinois
trying to explain why the Democratic unpleasantness that occurred on Tuesday
had nothing really to do with him. He may actually believe this, although he
may still be trying to process what just happened. I have often thought that our Illinois
Incitatus appears to think of his current office as being akin to being the
Mayor of Chicago, except with better golf courses and nuclear weapons. For any Mayor of Chicago, the Republicans are
something of an abstraction; you know that such people exist somewhere, but
they are not anyone you have to deal with and they are certainly not people
whose opinions you have to give any consideration. For our prairie solon, the first two years of
his term must have seemed like a golden age, a time when He was the master of all he surveyed, but all such ages must come to an end,
and now his enemies surround him like paparazzi on a red carpet. I think that it’s going to be an interesting
two years, yes I do.
Labels: Barack Obama, elections, midterms, Politics, Roberta Vasquez
5 Comments:
At 12:21 PM, Dick Stanley said…
Hopefully Wormtongue will stick to the golf courses and leave the nukes alone. As for Bragg, I like what his chief published critic Sam Watkins had to say: "Bragg was the great autocrat…He loved to crush the spirit of his men. The more of a hang-dog look they had about them the better was General Bragg pleased. Not a single soldier in the whole army ever loved or respected him.”
At 12:54 PM, Akaky said…
Sam was right. On the other hand, if Bragg had been replaced by someone competent like Cleburne or Bedford Forrest, or, in a real stretch of the historical imagination, Davis moved Lee to Tennessee and given command of the ANV to Jackson while he was still living, the history of the United States would have been entirely different. So I guess Bragg being a complete shit worked out for the country in the long run.
At 8:46 AM, SnoopyTheGoon said…
Re these two years: you know that old saying about chicken and pig's relation to eggs with bacon meal: the chicken is participating but the pig is committed. Our puny little state here is in the pig's situation as far as these two years are concerned... oh well, we have survived the pharaoh...
At 2:00 PM, Dick Stanley said…
Don't worry too much, Mr. G. The Worm ain't near as powerful as he looks from a distance. The new Republican congress can cut off his money supply whenever they feel like it. And his own party, having taken a drubbing, isn't likely to sit still for him doing anything outrageous and making their future worse. You saw the outcry over the "chickenshit" nonsense. He's mostly bluster at this point.
At 2:03 PM, Dick Stanley said…
Once more on Bragg: I believe he was the inspiration for that post-war Broadway character Jubilation T. Cornpone who was famous for leading charges to the rear.
Post a Comment
<< Home