On "Incompetent"

Bob Geiger

Here's exactly what Reid said:

"I guess the president, uh, he's gotten rid of Pace because he could not get him confirmed here in the Senate… Pace is also a yes-man for the president and I told him to his face, I laid it out to him last time he came to see me, I told him what an incompetent man I thought he was."

[UPDATE: Obtained: A Tape Of Reid's Conference Call With Bloggers -- Reid Did Blast Pace]

Wow.

Press Release of Senator Reid

General Peter Pace is a distinguished military veteran and public servant. Unfortunately, in my opinion he was never as candid as he should have been about the conduct and progress of this war.

May I recommend Charles Stevenson's Warriors and Politicians: US Civil-Military Relations Under Stress? Mountain Runner has a good review:

For the student of civil-military relations, Stevenson re-examines Peter D. Feaver's principal-agent model and its failure to account for Congress and questions the applicability of Samual Huntington's theories in the post-Cold War environment. He also looks at other big names on civil-military relations theory, offering shortcomings on their theories as well, such as Morris Janowitz, Eliot Cohen, Deborah Avant, Michael Desch, and Amy Zegart.