BlackFive

UPDATE: Fred Schoeneman piles on with sharp elbows.

I have read a lot of ignorant, ill-informed, mind-numbingly stupid shit in my ongoing efforts to chronicle the fools of the American left, but I have hit the jackpot with this doucheasaurus. The LA Times, respected and fair chronicler of news, has graced their editorial pages with quite possibly the dumbest thing I have read this year. Here is a quick taste.

Gen. David H. Petraeus may be as impressive a military professional as the United States has developed in recent years, but he could use some strategic advice on how to manage his sartorial PR. Witness his congressional testimony on the state of the war in Iraq. There he sits in elaborate Army regalia, four stars glistening on each shoulder, nine rows of colorful ribbons on his left breast, and various other medallions, brooches and patches scattered across the rest of the available real estate on his uniform. He even wears his name tag, a lone and incongruous hunk of cheap plastic in a region of pristine gilt, just in case the politicians aren't sure who he is.

That's a lot of martial bling, especially for an officer who hadn't seen combat until five years ago. Unfortunately, brazen preening and "ribbon creep" among the Army's modern-day upper crust have trumped the time-honored military virtues of humility, duty and personal reserve........

Memo to Petraeus: When you're making the case for more patriotic gore, go easy on the glitter.

Good lord, where to begin with such drivel. I think the simplest way to handle this is to read it, laugh at it's pretentious twittery and then remember that these are our cultural elites. These are our moral betters, the ones who will show us proles in flyover country how to think and act. Puh-leaze. I am certain that the clown who vomited this onto his MacBook has nothing at all to teach me.

What is that you ask, who is this ultra-maroon who would pop his little weasel head up?

Matthew DeBord, a former editor at Wine Spectator, is the author of The New York Book of Wine (Universe) and the forthcoming Wine Country USA (Rizzoli).

Why he is s wine critic of course, a member of that utterly useless class of wankers who spend their time swirling grape juice in glasses and then making up utterly pretentious bullshit about it. If there is someone who has less business sassing his betters it is someone whose livelihood consists of tossing out vital tidbits concocted in his mushy brain such as:

"This Shiraz has a plucky, ironic melancholy that reminds one of languid summer days spent watching the help sweating and toiling in their never-ending battle with the landscaping. It starts with a tinge of acacia brush from deepest Africa leading to an understanding of man's inhumanity to man, and finishes with the most astonishing wallop of sweaty bunghole."

Do the planet a favor Mr. DeBord and STFU about real men. Your attempt to portray Gen. Petraeus as a chickenhawk is the weakest of all arguments especially coming from someone who could only charitably be called even a girly man. Go back to your fern-filled loft and compare notes on the latest swill turned out by the grape-stompers. You need to leave the important business of who shall lead our country in war to those whose concept of it has progressed farther than fashion commentary about a man whose glass you are not fit to fill.