It appears we have appointed our worst generals to command forces, and our most gifted and brilliant to edit newspapers! In fact, I discovered by reading newspapers that these editor/geniuses plainly saw all my strategic defects from the start, yet failed to inform me until it was too late. Accordingly, I’m readily willing to yield my command to these obviously superior intellects, and I’ll, in turn, do my best for the cause by writing editorials – after the fact.
Robert E. Lee, via Michael Ledeen, Nation Review Online [1].
Some things just don’t change.
(Addendum: Bit)
Mike updates his post [2] with one from a general on the winning side, in reaction to a number of folks who pointed out that Lee lost…
“I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are. If I killed them all there would be news from Hell before breakfast.”
– Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman