ON STAYING THE COURSE A LESSON FROM MR. ED…SMITH AND OTHERS

Just what conditions exactly would allow us to cut back on our troop deployment in Iraq. If “the surge” works, and things get more stable or if things suddenly get more chaotic would seem to suggest two different strategies. And they are two different scenarios. Presuming that things don’t stabilize, the Republican argument regarding violence and a breakdown of civil order seems to be as follows: we have to stay in great numbers because we cannot in good conscience (which we wish they’d had before starting that war) allow massive loss of life and the ensuing destruction to social order. But then what if “The Surge” works, well…there are many right wingers who also argue that if the surge is calming things down we have to then “stay the course”, (a strategy long ago used by Edmund John Smith) and keep great numbers of our forces there because well…you explain it and we’ll explain where Edmund J. Smith and a gentleman named Preston Marshall, neither of whom are currently household names come in.
First to Mr. Smith, who was, and always will be the original “stay the course” guy. He was a white haired patrician of around age 60 when he received the most important command of his life. He had gone to the best schools and was if not the brightest of students certainly among the best connected. He was a friendly sort, fond of giving people folksy nick names (sound familiar) and was supremely confident almost to the point of being supremely stubborn. In fact in his diary he essentially describes his personal philosophy this way; “I have never met a situation I could not overcome”…again does that ring a bell? Smith was man who deeply valued his personal leisure time as well, and on one night to remember he delegated what proved to be a crucial judgment to a very inexperienced subordinate, the results of which left him on the collision course in history.
Preston Marshall was a successful business entrepreneur with strong some might say harsh political opinions, and with ideological views to match. He was the owner of the Washington Redskins and held among his many strong social theories the conviction that “the Negro” could not be an effective player in professional football and so he refused to draft a young Black man named Jim Brown out of Syracuse. For the uninformed (we don’t mean as uninformed in Mr. Marshall, that’s just not possible) Mr. Brown really could play that game. Owner Marshall had in his employee a coach named George Allen (whose Muccacca son, the former Senator of Virginia we all know, and can now fondly forget) was also the Redskins General Manager. Mr. Allen coached and managed (the finances) by never telling any player or the owner for that matter anything they didn’t want to hear, emphasizing flattery and loyalty. Again if some of these characters may sound like they would be welcome in the Bush administration, we agree.
Let us then surge along to our lesson and as is our (hopeful) custom a punch line or two. First, regarding Mr. or should we say Captain Smith who “stayed the course” but left an inexperienced underling (on watch in the crows nest) alone when there were warnings of the ocean liner version of a quagmire, specifically an ice field. And with no Karl Rove to spin his tale, Captain Smith’s last command bottomed out and received poor job reviews as it was the good ship Titanic. Preston Marshall when he saw what George Allen had done to his team’s budget, remember Allen never told a player anything they didn’t want to hear, uttered the memorable line that he had given Mr. Allen an “unlimited budget and he’d exceeded it”. Captain Smith, Owner Marshall and Coach Allen are long since gone, and we’re certainly not claiming that Senator McCain is old enough to have been on the Titanic but we can’t help thinking he’d feel a kinship with these three gentlemen. Unfortunately, Mr. McCain as well as the Bush administration has lost out on two valuable lessons. First, that a commander-in-chief has to have limits and set limits and second, as Captain of our ship of state it might be best to concentrate less on “staying the course” and more on missing the friggin’ iceberg.