Petraeus For President? [UPDATE: Maybe, but the reported speech in Iowa was a 'joke']

[ed. note: I don't get the joke that Goldfarb asserts in the edit of his original post. But just because I don't get it, doesn't mean that it's not funny.

No, that's not true. If I don't get it, it's not funny. If anyone knows this character, tell him he's an idiot and that this was a dumb joke.

Unless the joke was this: Watch as I lose all credibility. If so, ha ha.

I'm going to leave the original post so you can see what the fuss was all about.]

I've wondered (and wished) about the possibility of General David Petraeus running for President of the United States on the pages of this blog before. Well, my wish may just turn into reality.

Michael Goldfarb at the Weekly Standard reports:

Petraeus will also be addressing the commissioning ceremonies for Harvard and MIT ROTC. THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned that General Petraeus is planning on delivering the commencement address at the University of Iowa in 2010. Hmmm.

At the risk of becoming Captain Obvious, Iowa is the start to every Presidential primary and thus, the campaign itself. A successful showing in Iowa gave Mike Huckabee a national audience.

Of course, it could be that there is simply nothing to see here--just another commencement address at another university by one of the most talented leaders of men (& women) in American history. The Spectator addresses that idea here.

Petraeus going to Iowa, a state he doesn’t have previous ties to, is going to create a huge amount of buzz about his presidential ambitions because the Iowa Caucuses kick off the whole presidential nomination process. If he does, deliver the address—and Petraeus must know this—it will be seen as a sign that he is thinking about running in 2012.

Petraeus running against Obama would remind certain members of the military that many, ah, constituencies in the Democrat party do not like them. Remember Petraeus's treatment by certain Democrat Senators & Rahm Emanuel in September 2007 (to say nothing of Moveon's shameful ad)? Anyway, imagine how the revved up Democrat attack machine will treat Petraeus.

The question of a General running against the President who once commanded him is an interesting. The Spectator, again:

Previously, it has been thought that Petraeus would not run against a president who had been his Commander in Chief. But there are reports of tension between Petraeus and Obama over both Iraq and Afghan strategy.

So, General Petraeus thinks that whatever strategy Obama plans to pursue in some combination of Iraq/Afghanistan/(Iran?) is not a good one? What will the Obama apologists say about this?

Any combination of Mitt Romney, Bobby Jindal, Sarah Palin + General David Petraeus would be dynamite leadership for this country--outclassing by far the administration in place now.

(via Ace, per usual)


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More On Krugman, NYT, & Nobel

From the Weekly Standard:

Paul Krugman, a professor at Princeton University and an Op-Ed page columnist for The New York Times, was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences on Monday.
-- The New York Times, Oct. 13
THE NEW YORK TIMES

Krugman Awarded Economics Nobel Prize
In Unprecedented Times Sweep of Honors

By R. Selig Postlethwaite

Stockholm —The Nobel prizes have yielded some strange bedfellows in the century since Alfred Nobel’s invention of dynamite, but scholars here in the Swedish capital agree that there has never been anything like this year’s list of honorees: All of them are New York Times Op-Ed page columnists.

This virtual grand slam home run of the world’s most prestigious award was made possible by the announcement last night that Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman had won the Economics prize for, in the words of the Nobel Committee, “having shown the effects of economies of scale on trade patterns and the unrelenting lies and thuggery of the miscreants and goons in the criminal conspiracy that is the Bush White House.”

Krugman now joins New York Times colleagues Thomas Friedman (Peace), Frank Rich (Physics), Gail Collins (Chemistry), Maureen Dowd (Literature) and Bob Herbert (Medicine) as newly-minted Nobel laureates for 2008. According to the Nobel Foundation web site, this is the first time in the award’s history that journalists have won all six prizes; but that is not surprising, according to Foundation president Axel Hjergstrand, since “the mission of journalists is to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.”

Last week Maureen Dowd was awarded the Literature prize for her “unrelentingly sophomoric puns, schoolyard nicknames, and laser-like instinct for the superficial” while Gail Collins snared the Chemistry honors for “the explosive effect achieved by her combination of banality and short-term memory.”

Late last month the Nobel Committee bestowed its Physics prize on Frank Rich for “his pioneering work in demonstrating the parallels between American foreign policy and selected episodes of T.J. Hooker, as well as the relationship between U.S. transportation policy and the old Jerry Van Dyke sitcom, My Mother the Car.” The Medicine award went to Bob Herbert for what the committee called the “soothing sensation of his awkward prose, as well as the demonstrated therapeutic effect of the laughter his columns frequently inspire.”

Among colleagues and Nobel observers, there is widespread agreement that the Peace Prize for two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Thomas Friedman is long overdue, especially since, in the Norwegian Nobel committee’s citation, Friedman’s “lifetime of service to conventional wisdom, gross simplification, and mass hysteria has benefited countless executive retreats, Aspen Institute panels, and roundtable discussions on Charlie Rose.”

Here's the rub: I don't care for Paul Krugman or his view of the world as found in his NYT columns. I'd like to be able to separate his work on economics from his much publicized opinions, but I don't think it's impossible.

Whatever one thinks of the Nobel Prize (apart from the tax free $1.4million, I think it's worthless), this type of thing imbues those opinions with an added gravitas which they do not merit. Because they are crap (his columns, I mean).


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I Know Henry Kissinger And You, Sir, Are No Henry Kissinger

Barack Obama tried to lecture John McCain about foreign relations by citing McCain's own advisor, Henry Kissinger. McCain pointed out that Obama mischaracterized Kissinger's positions. Who shall we believe? How about Kissinger?

From Stephen F. Hayes at the Weekly Standard blog:

Henry Kissinger believes Barack Obama misstated his views on diplomacy with US adversaries and is not happy about being mischaracterized. He says: "Senator McCain is right. I would not recommend the next President of the United States engage in talks with Iran at the Presidential level. My views on this issue are entirely compatible with the views of my friend Senator John McCain. We do not agree on everything, but we do agree that any negotiations with Iran must be geared to reality."

(h/t Yuval Levin @ The Corner)


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