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<\/a>In politically driven moods, the ancient Romans often wiped from history all mention of a prior hero or celebrity. They called such erasures damnatio memoriae<\/em>.<\/p>\nThe Soviet Union likewise airbrushed away, or “Trotskyized,” all the images of any past kingpin who became politically incorrect.<\/p>\n
The Obama administration seems obsessed with doing the same to retired Gen. David Petraeus.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter is now thinking of retroactively taking away one or two of Petraeus\u2019 four stars. The potential demotion in rank, opposed by the Army, is intended as further punishment for the misdemeanor to which he pleaded guilty last year. Petraeus accepted two years of probation and paid a $100,000 fine for allowing his mistress, Paula Broadwell, to read classified information for research on the biography she was writing about Petraeus.<\/p>\n
Carter apparently wants to ensure that Petraeus is treated the same fashion as other miscreant generals and admirals who have lost rank. Yet there is no evidence that Broadwell (who enjoyed a military security clearance of her own) ever shared the classified information with anyone or disclosed it in the biography.<\/p>\n
That does not excuse the bad judgment of Petraeus. But it does invite an obvious comparison with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She not only sent classified information over her unsecured email to several individuals, but remains untruthful about that fact.<\/p>\n
To this day, we still do not know how many people received classified information via Clinton\u2019s emails, or whether hackers tapped into her non-approved private server. By any sense of commensurability, the Obama Justice Department should charge Clinton in the fashion it did Petraeus. If she goes free, the Obama administration confirms the suspicion that there are no longer any security laws for government officials \u2014 particularly when they are powerful and their politics agree with the president\u2019s.<\/p>\n
Petraeus was not just any four-star general. He was the most effective and talented American general since Gen. Matthew Ridgway, who saved what appeared to be a lost Korean War. Petraeus and his team promoted the so-called “surge” of troops into Iraq, and enlisted tens of thousands of Iraqis to join the American effort to defeat radical terrorists and insurrectionists.<\/p>\n
Petraeus\u2019 efforts saved Iraq \u2014 and thousands of American and Iraqi lives. Barack Obama entered office in 2009 with a mostly quiet Iraq. Petraeus\u2019 legacy explains why Vice President Joe Biden claimed Iraq as possibly one of the administration\u2019s “greatest achievements.” Obama himself boasted in late 2011 that he was pulling out all U.S. forces from a “sovereign, stable and self-reliant” Iraq.<\/p>\n
That claim was true \u2014 until Obama\u2019s politically driven skedaddle from Iraq created a vacuum to be filled by Islamic State terrorists.<\/p>\n
Practically, it might not be wise for Obama to humiliate Petraeus, thereby revisiting the circumstances of the general\u2019s strange exit from the Obama administration.<\/p>\n
The media have rarely noted that the administration learned of Petraeus\u2019 imbroglio sometime in summer of 2012, right in the middle of the Obama re-election campaign. Yet Petraeus\u2019 sudden, unexpected resignation as CIA director came just three days after Obama\u2019s re-election. What exactly the CIA was doing in Libya, and what happened in Benghazi, are likewise murky.<\/p>\n
The current puritanical frenzy with regard to our military is sacrificing battlefield talent. We never would have won World War II had we shared the administration\u2019s present obsessions.<\/p>\n
The hard-drinking and womanizing Adm. Ernest King was the architect of the brilliant comeback of the U.S. Navy, which had been crippled at Pearl Harbor. Less than four years later under King, it utterly destroyed the Imperial Japanese Navy.<\/p>\n
Gen. George S. Patton in 1943 slapped two soldiers in Sicily whom he thought were slackers, but who were probably ill. Yet the reprimanded Patton\u2019s career was ultimately salvaged. He went on to save tens of thousands of American lives in Europe with his audacious armored drives and often brilliant encirclements.<\/p>\n
Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower quite possibly had an affair with his chauffeur, Kay Summersby, in the midst of overseeing the Normandy operations. Should we now strip the long-dead Eisenhower of his fifth star, given that he may well have discussed confidential information with Summersby while overseeing an army of 2 million?<\/p>\n
Iconic Gen. Douglas MacArthur carried on an affair with an underaged Filipina actress, Isabel Rosario Cooper, while he was top U.S. commander in the Philippines in 1930. Should MacArthur have been relieved of duty before he led a Pacific offensive that liberated the Philippines from Japanese occupation?<\/p>\n
Petraeus has lost his reputation. He resigned his job as CIA director. He pled guilty to a misdemeanor. He was fined. He was put on probation.<\/p>\n
Enough is enough with Petraeus. It is time to move on for an administration that threw away a stable Iraq \u2014 once saved by the man it still hounds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Tribune Media Services In politically driven moods, the ancient Romans often wiped from history all mention of a prior hero or celebrity. They called such erasures damnatio memoriae. The Soviet Union likewise airbrushed away, or “Trotskyized,” all the images of any past kingpin who became politically incorrect. The Obama administration seems […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-2kY","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":326,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/oh-what-a-tangled-web\/","url_meta":{"origin":8988,"position":0},"title":"Oh What a Tangled Web","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 21, 2012","format":"gallery","excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Supporters of President Obama have dubbed those who question administration statements about Libya as either partisans or conspiracy theorists, on the premise that the administration had no reason to dissimulate. But in fact, it had plenty of political reasons not to be candid,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Benghazi"","block_context":{"text":"Benghazi","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/benghazi\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3840,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/cario-ironies-same-cast-of-american-characters-different-play\/","url_meta":{"origin":8988,"position":1},"title":"Cario Ironies: Same Cast of American Characters, Different Play","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 13, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online The United States\u2019 public position on Egypt is \u201cflexible.\u201d That in and of itself is not surprising, given the ambiguities surrounding the Cairo uprising. Mubarak\u2019s Egypt originally offered the United States a continuance of Anwar Sadat\u2019s Cold War anti-Soviet alliance, and later provided\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egypt"","block_context":{"text":"Egypt","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/egypt\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":330,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/too-many-narratives-to-get-straight\/","url_meta":{"origin":8988,"position":2},"title":"Too Many Narratives to Get Straight?","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 19, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner At some point the prurient angle of the Petraeus story that alone enticed a reluctant media into becoming tangentially interested in Benghazi-gate \u2014 in the way the deaths of four Americans never did \u2014 will die down. Then we are left with largely three\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Benghazi"","block_context":{"text":"Benghazi","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/benghazi\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9674,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/has-trump-nominated-too-many-military-leaders-or-not-enough\/","url_meta":{"origin":8988,"position":3},"title":"Has Trump Nominated Too Many Military Leaders\u2014Or Not Enough?","author":"Megan Ring","date":"December 15, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0By Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review Choosing military men for top cabinet spots is not unprecedented, nor is it foolish given how Washington insiders have performed. President-elect Donald Trump is being faulted for supposedly appointing too many retired generals to cabinet-level jobs and \u201cmilitarizing\u201d the government. Former lieutenant general Michael\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Jim Mattis"","block_context":{"text":"Jim Mattis","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/jim-mattis\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1538,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-mcchrystal-endnote\/","url_meta":{"origin":8988,"position":4},"title":"A McChrystal Endnote","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 24, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner Obama had no choice but to do what he did, and the wise Petraeus move was obviously a mitigating factor. Obama\u2019s speech, despite the customarily excessive use of \u201cI,\u201d \u201cme,\u201d and \u201cmy,\u201d was workmanlike and wise in its emphasis on continuity of strategy. In\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "June 2010"","block_context":{"text":"June 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/june-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":317,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/oh-we-forgot-to-tell-you\/","url_meta":{"origin":8988,"position":5},"title":"Oh, We Forgot to Tell You . . .","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 26, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services The second-term curse goes like this: A president (e.g., Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, etc.) wins re-election, but then his presidency implodes over the next four years \u2014 mired in scandals or disasters such as Watergate, Iran-Contra, Monica Lewinsky,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Middle East"","block_context":{"text":"The Middle East","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8988"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8988"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8996,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8988\/revisions\/8996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}