GENERALS, PARTISANS, FAIR PLAY, DIRTY DEALS AND METRICS

OK, the General has showed up and given his testimony.

The administration has worshipped at his feet. The democrats have called him a liar. The lefty interest groups have abandoned integrity in favor of a cheap rhyme......and we don't know anything more now than we did last week.

The guy knew he was in the crosshairs when he took the assignment. I have no reason to believe he did anything other than his honorable but subjective best to paint a picture of an uneven situation. It serves no long term purpose to attack his personal veracity or paint him as a puppet for the administration. The whole thing was a semi-useless exercise anyhow. The stayer-iners are still stayer-iners and the puller-outers are still puller-outers.

As I have said on numerous occasions that this situation lacks is METRICS. How many battalions of functioning military? How many working courts? How much gross oil production? How many police precincts? How much immigration control machinery? How many schools, hospital, water/sewer plants? "Getting better" is a measurable set of circumstances. These measuring sticks could have easily been set out on the head end.

They weren't. Why not? Because it is in both the left and right's interests that they not be spelled out. Both sides can argue their positions and chum the waters of their donors by casting the facts however they want them, precisely because there are no established metric measures of progress. "Progress" or "Failure"? Who the Hell knows? Nobody bothered to set up measuring sticks to tell our proud military when its job is done. Young Americans die. Gasbags blow. Donors give. And the freaking beat goes on......just as it will continue until we have metrics to tell us when the nightmare is over.

Pretty much a pox on everybody's house. My take is you'll look a long time (and get eye strain) for any heroes at either end of Pennsylvania Ave.