The plan of the martial peace party

Richard Brookhiser:

So The New York Times has found six generals who want Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to resign. The peace party often makes a show of embracing the martial virtues, though they should be careful what they ask for. People often suspect a ruse, and the uniformed front men that come forward are not necessarily top quality.

In 1864, at the climax of the Civil War, the Democrats tried to unseat Abraham Lincoln with “the young Napoleon,” Gen. George B. McClellan. McClellan had commanded the Union’s armies, but chafed at the civilians under whom he served: He called Lincoln a “well-meaning baboon.” But what should McClellan have been called? This is what the historian John Keegan calls him: “vain, vainglorious, opinionated, worldly, self-satisfied, ostentatiously busy …. [H]e resembled [Douglas] MacArthur in his arrogance and George C. Marshall in his hauteur, [while lacking] the former’s dynamism and the latter’s strength of character …. ” Young Napoleon managed to carry only three states for the peace party. If the insurgents of the Confederacy had been able to vote, no doubt he would have done better.

Let us assume that Mr. Rumsfeld’s critics, and Mr. Rumsfeld himself, are all, all honorable men. Real philosophical issues divide them, which makes their dispute more than a catfight, and something other than the obvious protest of outraged experts against the bumbling of outsiders.

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