Captain’s Quarters notes that Gang of Generals plankholder Major General (Retired) John Batiste has backpedaled reviewed his position on the Iraq war.

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The ernest and preternaturally haggard Batiste was once featured on NPR slagging off then-SECDEF Donald Rumsfeld.

The Weekly Standard is again aware of Batiste.

Crooks and Liars notes Batiste speaking in 2006 about moral courage: “I for one will continue to speak out until there is accountability, until the American people establish momentum, and until our Congressional oversight committees kick into action.”

It’s humorous to hear Batiste yelping about anything being “kicked into action.” He might well have kicked his latent courage into action before now, by using his experience and training to sufficiently analyze the political-military situation in Iraq toward the kind of understanding he only now has come to realize.

And about that Congressional Oversight: oversight of what? Oversight of his stock portfolio? oversight of the 2008 presidential elections? oversight of the success of the surge in Baghdad? oversight of his rather pedantic view of events in the War on Terrorism? oversight of whoever the hell was responsible for his career advancement? or oversight for any work for him in a 2008 presidential administration?

What passes for Army generals these days, anyway? We once had Ridgway and Eisenhower, Washington and Grant. Now we have… a Gang of Generals, who ply the Party Line until they retire. Then they slag off their former superiors as idiots and sluts, as if they actually know better, as if they had professional visibility on matters far beyond their vision or what their duties required.

One need only remember this when studying Batiste’s wavering positions… hardly the attitude and motivation the Army would have sought from a lieutenant general. Which may help explain his lack of promotability, on a purely military side.

Batiste is a sideline whiner, a Monday morning quarterback, a beer-drunk chump in a Lazy-Boy recliner, a guy who makes sure he’s got his own before he opens his mouth. That’s another definition of a coward. And the Gang of Generals is populated with nothing else than self-serving cowards.

Or maybe Batiste is just a craven opportunist, willing to change sides, opinions, judgments, and decisions depending on how he sees the weathervane turning. Maybe he’s about whatever keeps the money flowing and the TV appearances coming.

You can view posters of the other GOGs here.

Outside the Beltway wants to know why members of the press aren’t knowledgeable about their subjects. In this case, it’s about commissioned officers “re-enlisting.” I don’t know, OTB, but lack of basic understanding about the military certainly is a problem. For mainstream media, it seems every servicemember is a “soldier,” and every officer above O-3 is described as “senior.” I wonder how many times Wesley Clark re-enlisted.

GOG IS BACK: One of the original members of our Gang of Generals has lost his job at CBS. MG (Retired) John Batiste was removed from his “military analyst” job for political activism. Nonetheless, Batiste remains on radar for his buffoonery. GoG member Paul Eaton has a cameo in the offending activism: a TV ad.

MAN BITES DOG O’ THE DAY: Michelle Malkin notes an SFGate article on a legal immigrant suing San Francisco’s police commissioner for failing to deal with illegal migrants. That ought to end well. The City, of course, is a “sanctuary” for illegals, as well as the homeless, the mentally ill, wasteful and clueless politicians, and bay windows.

REYNOLDS ALUMINIUM UPDATE: If it’s kooky, it’s Kucinich! Impish Dem climbs aboard Bush impeachment train, surprised to find only three other passengers.

ABC BLOG APPARENTLY RUN BY SNARKY TEENAGER: An ABC blog is deleting comments. That’s nothing new. Most of my readers’ comments are deleted out of hand. I must say, I sure do have a large fanbase in the pharmaceutical industry.

A MINUTE FOR PELOSI: If it’s a day of the week ending in “day,” then Pelosi must have done something wrong. This time she’s working a deal that would purportedly help hubby’s rental property a scant mile away. A mile’s a long way for Pelosi, who denies any link — but then again, it would be a long way away for a Speaker who’s still crawling.

FORGOTTEN RECENT NEWS: Read somewhere that one in two Mexicans have family members in the US. Where did I read that, and why don’t I care?

The ace reporters at the El Paso Times have sussed out something important. Undocumented immigrants in the border town are poor because they lack, you know citizenship, naturalization papers, or visas that would get them a better education. But what EPT doesn’t realize is that plenty of Americans are still stuck on stupid even with a sheepskin between their paws. All that said, “thousands of Mexican children” are attending US public schools, the paper screamed back on April 29th. Well, OK, it didn’t scream. No one would care if the “brown ones” (that’s Bush the First talking, not me) were taking up desk space learning (or more likely, not learning, the three Rs, but the rub comes when the city is trying to float a $230 million education bond to, believe it or not, build new schools to handle growth. We’re such a magnanimous country. “Give me your tired, your poor, your coyotes and drug runners, and your illiterate kids who are evidence of a failed/nonexistent Mexican education system.”

OUT OF TIME: I’m not even beginning to get ready to deal with Al Sharpton right now. I have to unstop a toilet, which is preferable to thinking about that ugly little bigot.

ANOTHER USA VS. BORDER PATROL AGENT STORY: How far back in time do you need to go to start seeing a pattern? One gets weary of reading of yet another agent crucified to satisfy the political and financial agendas of NGOs, bureaucrats and lawyers. If you believe the agent and not the federal lawyer, that is. Either one could be the crumb bum.

WEEKEND AT CASTRO’s: Like a resurrected corpse, Michael Moore made it back into the light of day. He jetted off to Cuba to check out their world-class medical system, which is free for everyone, as everyone who is free knows. Sadly, the unfilmed truth is more painful. It ain’t free and it’s not available to everyone. I hear there’s a new show coming out: “Who Wants to Correct a Millionaire?”

Famous local Hawai’ian god TikiPundit created the Gang of Generals (GoG) posters from his heiau in 2005. He has graciously assented to their being resurrected on this blog, since he is now retired. We graciously and humbly accept them, and post them below. 4 Borders Pundit will continue to update GoG as necessary.

4BP thinks it’s especially offensive that the Left now embraces GoG, after years (decades, John Kerry?) of sneering at them and everyone else in uniform for being “unable to get a job” in the civilian world. “If you’re stupid, you get stuck in Iraq.” How’s dropping out of the 2008 Presidency race feel, John? Got another dumb joke to get you out of the Senate, by any chance?

For a long time, the Left has sneered at military personnel for being undereducated. For being minorities exploited by white overlords. For being torturers and killers, or alternately, for being too operationally incompetent to hit the broad side of a Muslim terrorist’s hiney.

The faithless GoG — full of hate and self-loathing, I think — are a group of egotistical maniacs who think they know better. Largely, they didn’t know better when in uniform, and not one of them knows better now. They all know less. Some of them have been out of the game since Windows 3.1x was introduced. They’ve had not an intelligence update, not an operational planning briefing, not a salute, not a staff car, not a personal mess specialist, not a quick trip in a taxpayer-funded Lear Jet, not an aide-de-camp to straighten things (and their uniform) out, nothing.

Because generals and admirals are always motivated about something, GoG exists. The very individuals who cheerfully led their troops through poor quality-of-life, inept planning, lack of care or concern for their subordinates’ well-being or their families, the officers who drove thousands out of the service in frustration, all the while climbing the ladder on lip-service compliments to their lessers given only at award and change-of-command ceremonies — these are the self-same persons who are now decrying the military state of affairs in Iraq (but never Afghanistan, note).

There are GoGs in the making right now in the field grade ranks, be assured. More on that later.

The cynicism of GoG is stupefying. The hypocrisy is remarkable. The money to be made GoGing is attractive.

GoG will do anything necessary to obtain and maintain an audience. Since they can’t order a formation or “all-hands” anymore, they have prostituted themselves out to Mainstream Media. And that dog has lapped them up like sweet milk and given them an audience they never dreamed of before.

Everyone’s got an agenda in this case: GoG and MSM use and abuse each other, like willing Soapland hostesses and clients.

Here are the GoG Motivational Posters. As new GoGs emerge from underneath the rock of their retirements, they’ll be included. 4BP is paying special attention to their media awareness, as this is the best indicator of where they think they might find new appointments in a Democrat Administration in 2009.

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