Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Jeb Bush is modeling his campaign on one of military history's great disasters
Jonathan Martin and Patrick Healy on rebooting Jeb Bush's presidential un-campaign:
By hiring Mr. Diaz, Mr. Bush wanted to send a clear signal that "the culture of the Bush operation will now be a Pickett's Charge engagement campaign with his main opponents," according to one Bush ally.
This is a reference to an element of the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. Except Pickett's Charge was a bloody disaster for the men involved that devastated the strategic position of the men who'd ordered it.
The context was that General Robert E. Lee had ordered a daring Confederate invasion of the North, which eventually led to a massive gathering of Union and Confederate forces in the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. On the third day of that battle, Lee ordered artillery bombardment of Union positions on the high ground at Cemetery Ridge, followed by an infantry charge. Union forces correctly predicted what was up, and silenced their guns during the Confederate barrage. That lead the rebels to mistakenly believe that they'd knocked out the Union's big guns, so they sent 12,000 men to try to take the ridge. They were cut to pieces by Union guns, suffered a 50 percent casualty rate, lost the battle, and permanently lost the strategic initiative in the larger war.
http://www.vox.com/2015/6/14/8777727/jeb-bush-picketts-charge
Paul Krugman also weighs in
Don’t Know Much About History, Jeb Bush Edition
…
Hmm. Pickett’s Charge is not exactly something you want to emulate …
I find myself thinking about an incident from a while back, where Jeb invoked the spirit of a “mystic warrior':
After more than an hour of solemn ceremony naming Rep. Marco Rubio, R-West Miami, as the 2007-08 House speaker, Gov. Jeb Bush stepped to the podium in the House chamber last week and told a short story about “unleashing Chang,” his “mystical warrior” friend.
Here are Bush’s words, spoken before hundreds of lawmakers and politicians: ”Chang is a mystical warrior. Chang is somebody who believes in conservative principles, believes in entrepreneurial capitalism, believes in moral values that underpin a free society.
”I rely on Chang with great regularity in my public life. He has been by my side and sometimes I let him down. But Chang, this mystical warrior, has never let me down.”
Here are Bush’s words, spoken before hundreds of lawmakers and politicians: ”Chang is a mystical warrior. Chang is somebody who believes in conservative principles, believes in entrepreneurial capitalism, believes in moral values that underpin a free society.
”I rely on Chang with great regularity in my public life. He has been by my side and sometimes I let him down. But Chang, this mystical warrior, has never let me down.”
How was he to know that “unleashing Chiang” was about landing Kuomintang troops on the mainland, where they would have been slaughtered? (Maybe that Pickett comparison isn’t so off after all.)
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/06/14/dont-know-much-about-history-jeb-bush-edition/?smid=re-share&_r=0
4 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
