By Bernie
Quigley
For The Hill
on 3/27/13
If as has
been widely suggested, CPAC 2016 marked a paradigm change, a generational
change, a new direction of conservatism, it is possible to speculate that one
that fits the new paradigm could be president in 2016. Among them: Senator Rand
Paul of Kentucky, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Texas Governor Rick Perry and
Sarah Palin, all of whom starred at the CPAC convention. For any one of these,
the perfect choice for VP should be David Petraeus.
Patraeus
always wanted to be president. He still does. His admission to the affair was
timed to the wire to get it out of the way – to publicly atone and honor his
wife and enter again the path. There is no more common foible for a man his
age. It happens. And Petraeus along with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates
retrieved the country’s karma when we had skidded entirely off the rocks.
It had been
a long time coming. The army under Tommy Franks was a mess for a long time. There
hadn’t been a fight in a long time. When the snob schools in the northeast
dropped ROTC it made for a South Baptist army corps and this has only now begun
to repair. All these things dangerously destabilized and endangered the
integrity of America. Petraeus, warrior scholar with a PhD from Princeton,
began to bring it back.
Patraeus and
Gates brought us back in a desperate situation. One of them, and I doubt Gates
wants it, is necessary to stabilize the memory of a misbegotten war and restore
order and continuity to the mind collectively. Especially if we are going to
see big changes ahead as Cruz and Paul promise, Petrause as VP would assure
America and help keep the keel in the water.
Patraeus is
not part of the new thinking of Paul, the libertarians, and the young conservatives
of CPAC 2013 – “states rights, sound money, constitutional government.” The general’s job is to
stabilize and execute ideas already awakened and bring them forward, as
Washington did with Hamilton, Grant with Lincoln and Eisenhower with Roosevelt.
The combination of innovator/warrior – some management types call it the
Merlin/Arthur combination - is possibly the most creative and successful
management constellation.
There can be
no doubt that Rand Paul and Ted Cruz bring exciting new idea to America. But as
Rick Perry has said, the president’s first job is national defense - so much
else can be deferred to the states in the view of Jackson and Jefferson, but
not national defense. A military figure with the status of Petraeus would make this case. A general as
VP would reassure the public that the rebel libertarians are not going to
dismantle America. Rand Paul is not his father. Patraeus as his VP would assure
the public. And for the others as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment