The Ming Report

NAPOLEON COMPLEX

Tom Delay knows a thing or two about conducting a campaign to rid the world of implacable enemies. I’ll wager that he knows a thing or two about using chemical agents to defeat the foe. Of course he fought against nothing more dangerous to him than Texas sized termites and fire ants. Now I certainly do not mean to diminish the challenge to humanity that fire ants pose (I have visited Texas and became too intimately acquainted with the formidable critters) but Majority Leader Delay’s long service in the war against Texas bugs is hardly the equivalent of the distinguished military career of retired General Wesley Clark. Certainly the vertically challenged Rep. Delay might well have come up with a better choice of derisive epithets than to refer to General Clark as a “blow-dried Napoleon”.

Obviously Mr. Delay feels that his experience as a military leader places him in a far superior position to General Clark to evaluate and comment upon military affairs. I thought it might be instructive to examine The Hammer’s military career. It turns out that when he had the opportunity to serve he was unable to do so. It seems, according to Mr. Delay, "So many minority youths had volunteered ... that there was literally no room for patriotic folks like myself." To think that there was just no room in the Army for a real patriotic American like Tom Delay. All those “minorities” like, for example, Colin Powell just muscled their way in and squeezed poor Tommy out and he had to make do with fighting vermin at home.

Perhaps he has something there. After all Clark is a West Pointer, number 1 in the Class of 1966. A company commander in Vietnam his service was distinguished only by a Purple Heart, two Bronze Stars, a Silver Star, and a bunch of other medals. He retired in 2000 from an insignificant post – Supreme Allied Commander, Europe. Between graduating from West Point and serving in Viet Nam, he earned a Masters degree in Politics and Economics from Oxford. Worst of all he was a Rhodes Scholar and was born in Little Rock and we know what THAT means. Obviously he is clearly not qualified to analyze and comment on military affairs, especially those conducted by the much more qualified Bush Administration. Clark never patrolled the Texas skies nor fought the battles of the Birmingham Bars.

So there it is America. Who you gonna listen to about the conduct of a war, this “Blow-dried Napoleon” or the Orkin Man?