Beauty is Imperfection

I didn’t know Ignatius T. Reilly was a real person. But evidently he is and he’s writing for The New York Times now.

I’m still trying to decide whether this article is an elaborate joke played on the Times. In it, an apoplectic op-ed columnist opines that David Patraeus is a phony because he dresses well and sometimes rides around in a jet. A real general, we are reminded, eats nails for breakfast and kills people with their bare hands. Like Patton. Also, Patraeus did not conquer Iraq. The author does not explain what that would entail, exactly. It’s not occupying Iraq, evidently, nor purging its dictator. I guess it means we should have killed everybody there. I’m just guessing. But at the very least, it means you are not ever allowed to flirt with any woman, so I assume that warriors don’t have a sex drive or if they do it is completely sublimated into the act of vivid Normandy style ultraviolence at all times. Also, real men don’t floss.

Is this the rant of some guy from the local bowling alley? No. Evidently the writer was embedded with Patraeus in Iraq and is I guess still smarting that the general did not share his entire war strategy with him. The journalist certainly had the right to be offended. I’m sure he didn’t come across as pushy, choleric or passing strange. Not from what I can tell of his trenchant, and not remotely confused torrent of boy taunts. I don’t have a dog in the Petraeus fight. I don’t care whom he screwed or if he retires, nor blame him for the hopelessly politicized wars we’ve undertaken in the Muslim world. I would feel a bit protective of the general, however, if, say, a random homeless person approached him on the street wanting to Indian wrestle, which is kind of what this writer sounds like.

There are a lot of covetous journalists who would love to prize away precious New York Times white space and fill it up with their own kaleidoscopic musings. We are a jealous bunch, we writers. So I hope this does not sound catty when I say I am completely befuddled at how an unfocused pub rant without almost any facts in it somehow spilled like dark bitter onto the paper of record. Either the author knows somebody there, he filibustered a tired editor or (again, my favorite suspicion) this is an elaborate prank. If it’s not, it’s probably the the worst article I’ve ever read in the Times. Ever. And remember, I’ve read Judy Miller’s article where she said she saw a scientist off in the distance pointing at the ground where Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction components were buried. It’s so bad, I’m feeling a wee bit less jealous.

If you want a real story about Petraeus and are ready to leave go the lip-biting sex gossip and windy conspiracy theories, check out Robert Wright’s piece in The Atlantic. If you remember how awful the CIA was some 40 years ago, Wright reminds you that with a little human ingenuity and coalescing of power, it could indeed be awful again.