Troops coined "General BetrayUS"

Here's an interesting bit of news I first read on The Group News Blog:

First off let's be clear about who David Petraeus is. He is someone who takes credit where credit is not due. Someone who is very competitive and has shown that he cares little for the line troops that make his commands. Some of the only interactions that his men have had with him have involved him choppering in and pinning a purple heart on the lucky man that is pointed out to him by his aides and hopping back on the chopper. It's the best way to maintain those starched cammies. This guy was responsible for securing the weapons and explosive caches in Iraq. He was not supposed to rush to glory by bypassing towns to try to enter Baghdad first. He was supposed to destroy or guard all those AK-47's currently being used to shoot our troops to death, and he was supposed to stop the distribution all tons of explosives to bomb makers in Iraq. You have to understand the nickname Betrayus came from Iraq. There is not a 11B who doesn’t know this nickname. It’s his fuckups with weapons and explosives that garnered him the name. He was also supposed to train the Iraqi security forces. You remember those. The ones were we had 100 battalions, and then we have 23 battalions and then 3. The more security forces Petraeus trained the fewer we had. They sent his ass back to Kansas after that debacle.

And an article in the TimesOnline also referred to:

Critics, including one recently retired general, are privately calling him “General Betraeus” on the grounds that he is too ambitious to deliver a balanced report on the war.

And DailyKos links to a comment from 2005 on BLACKFIVE, a PajamasMedia blog, of all places that confirms the troops-Betrayus origins.

Hmmm...now if any or all of this information was broadcast on your nightly news program alongside the MoveOn.org ad it would clear up alot of misunderstanding and bullshit floating around out there.

Saturday Malamute Blogging

Crazy puppy likes to view the world upside down.

This is how to handle the FOX censors

Rice and Beans: Not just a common food staple

I'm not even sure what to think of this:

In the book and on the show, Kessler described how Rice's "closest male friend" is openly gay, a man by the name of Coit D. Blacker, a Stanford professor (Rice was provost at Stanford in the late 1990s for six years) and a Democrat who served in the Clinton administration. Blacker, whose partner is also mentioned, advised Al Gore's campaign in 2000, while his close friend Rice became a chief confidante to a president who has tried to make gays into second class citizens in the U.S. Constitution. But wait, it gets better.

Rice's "closest female friend" is a woman named Randy Bean (pictured here), who is unmarried and whose sexual orientation is not stated. She is described as a "liberal progressive;" she's a documentary filmmaker who works at Stanford University and once worked for Bill Moyers. She and Rice and Blacker (again, who has a partner) are discussed as a "second family," a term Bean uses, also saying that, "on friends, [Rice] goes narrow and deep."

According to newly revealed information in the book (which Kessler found through real estate records), the two women, Rice and Bean (yes, hilarious), own a home together and have a line of credit together. Bean explains this to Kessler by saying that she had some medical bills that drained her financially years ago, and Rice and Blacker helped her out by buying the house with Bean. But over time Blacker sold his share of the house to Rice and Bean, and then Rice would later get the line of credit with Bean to do some renovations on the home. Kessler, when pressed, said he did not know if this meant there was something more to the relationship between the women beyond a friendship.

OK. Let's review: Coit Blacker, closest male friend to Condo, advised Al Gore during the 2000 presidential campaign. Condo's closest female friend is a documentary filmmaker who worked with Bill Moyers. I can't even get my mind around the incestuousness of this scenario. Whether Condo is a lesbian is beside the point.

Condo serves an administration that demonizes gays and lesbians and liberal progressives. But she parties with her best friend and his male lover, and owns a home and shares a line of credit with her other best friend, a liberal progressive, with no apparent guilt over these monumental betrayals. And no apparent guilting or rejection from the best friends, either. The disconnect here, on all sides, is worthy of a sociopath. Which brings us to Condo's bestest friend, George Bush. But that's a whole 'nother blog...

I've always thought Gore was advised by persons on the GOP payroll, but this is through-the-Looking-Glass material. Beyond Carville and Matalin, beyond Animal Farm and 1984, even.

Loyalty = treachery. Faithful = traitorous.

What I wouldn't give to be a fly on the wall when these best friends get together.