Here is the Roman historian Tacitus:

After the crushing defeat at Cremona, Vitellus stupidly supressed the news of the disaster, thus postponing not the evil itself but its cure. Had he admitted the facts and sought advice, hope and strength were still left to him: his pretence that all went well only made matters worse.
[..]
He was ignorant of soldiering, incapable of forethought,: knew nothing of marching order or scouting, or how far operations should be pressed forward or protacted. He always had to ask someone else. At every fresh piece of news his expression and gait betrayed his alarm. And then he would get drunk.

Reminds me of something.

My last diary was substantially word-for-word a comment in a thread on Lawyers, Guns and Money.  I like this site, finding their items usually convincing, and always informative, but I sometimes butt heads with their "centrist" tendency to be "serious" on foreign and military policy.  Robert Farley was kind enough to give me a shout-out (well, at least you could say he recognized my butt-headedness) on a new post today, Caveats on the American Way of War, so I feel I should reciprocate.

Below the fold is my answer to his post.

[UPDATE: I wanted to post here the email I received from Josh Trevino on this issue (I have his permission). I felt it was important for folks to see it for clarification from the man himself...

You got it pretty much right. Nice post, and thanks for the kind words. I'd only add three caveats:

a) It's a method for creating political possibilities, not winning elections or passing legislation per se. A lot of your critics seem to miss that.

b) While there is massive overlap between the GOP and the think tanks, it's the latter that originated and use this specific methodology (though not the concept, I think, which is an old one). The party is a bit more short-term and tactical. I wouldn't wholly conflate the two.

c) On DHinMI's specific comments, while I can't do anything about his particular dislike for me -- and it runs deep -- I can say that in response to his critique of the Mackinac Center, its political kneecapping of the Michigan teachers' union is a signal accomplishment.

Most resp.,

Josh Trevino

I'm sure everyone has seen or heard about this FRONTPAGE diary at Redstate.com, where the sheet-wearing segments of the Republican party came out in force.

Ordinarily, my reaction to such stuff is a combination of outrage and pleasure.  Outrage at the racism, and pleasure at the fact that the wingnuts are willing to show us their true face.

However, seeing that post caused me to feel regret--regret over how Redstate utterly failed to become anything more than David Duke with a better vocabulary.   And it also shows that so long as the core of one of our two primary parties is intractably racist, the future of race relations remains bleak.

A sobering contrast between past intentions and present reality below the fold.

My friend Josh Trevino, of Red State and Tacitus fame, e-mailed me today to point me to a new essay he had written on the Harriet Miers nomination as an indictment of the Bush administration. It's a good read from a highly principled, intelligent man who really knows how to write.

There is little that can be said about Harriet Miers nomination to the Supreme Court that can be disputed. She was not picked for her ideology; she was not picked for her scholarship; she was not picked for her intellect; and she was not picked to appease a constituency. She was picked for the same reason Richard Cheney is the Vice President of the United States: Because George W. Bush is comfortable with her.

Josh isn't too thrilled with this nomination, to say the least. While he an I have vastly opposing idelogical views of the Bush administration, his analysis is nonetheless as scathing as mine would be. For more, go below the flip.

I went to RedState to see how they are reacting this morning, and came across this shocking piece of news...

Trevino was the founder of RedState, and he has now resigned from the site due to:

What differences?  Well, his Frontpaged heavily anti-Bush diary today might have something to do with it.