VDH: When and Why Mice Roar

When and Why Mice Roar

One becomes bewildered at the tone of Gen. Sanchez's rebuttal to the Bush radio address, especially if collating both his present advice and criticism of Iraq with his own past tenure there—a similar syndrome to the supposedly sensational charges of the Scott McClellan memoirs, given the latter's utter incompetence and inability at a time of war to articulate, expound, and defend what the U.S. was trying to do in Iraq—all akin to those — cf. Michael Scheuer, Richard Clark, et al. — who could not capture, much less kill bin Laden in the 1990s, nor trace down the 9/11 terrorists before 9/11.

In all these cases, there is dismal pattern: a mediocre functionary keeps quiet about the mess around him, muddles through, senses that things aren't going right, finds himself on the losing end of political infighting, is forced out or quits, seethes that his genius wasn't recognized, takes no responsibility for his own failures, worries he might be scape-goated, and at last senses that either a New York publisher or the anti-war Left, or both, will be willing to offer him cash or notoriety — but only if he serves their needs by trashing his former colleagues in a manner he never would while on the job.

Note that none offered to resign as a matter of principle when they were not yet in a precarious position; all post facto found some sort of profit in timing the proper occasion to level the "J' accuse!"

But this is now all as predictable as it is monotonous.

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