The Scandal Mongers

I looked up that Larry Craig story. What is it about politicians and other celebrities that make them so vulnerable to scandal mongering? It has become fashionable in some circles to blame the media for it, but I think the media just feeds the public what they want to hear. If nobody paid attention to this crap, the media would stop dishing it out. Maybe people wouldn't be so fascinated by this stuff if they had real lives of their own. Come to think of it, it's been awhile since I've heard that old put down, "Get a life!", but then I don't get around much anymore.

I read in Byron York's column in our local paper today that the investigation into Trump's alleged collusion with the Russians has come to a dead end, but now they are investigating whether Trump tried to cover up this alleged crime that probably never happened. I suppose that's no different than when Martha Stewart was convicted of perjury for lying about something she had done which turned out to not even be illegal. Then there was Watergate. Everybody knew about it before the election, but they voted for Nixon anyway. Six months later some reporters uncovered the subsequent cover up and the public began calling for Nixon's head. If they weren't mad at him for doing it in the first place, why were they so mad at him for covering it up? And what about that thing with Hillary's emails? It wasn't illegal when she did it, that law was passed later. Hillary admitted that she had made a mistake, but they just kept hounding her about it. I understand that Hillary has been investigated multiple times over the years, but none of the allegations were ever proven. So why do they keep trying? Don't they have anything better to do?

It may surprise some people that the mission of the U.S. Infantry is not to kill people, I know it surprised me when I learned about it in my infantry training. The mission of the infantry is to take and hold ground by means of fire and close combat, or words to that effect. They really don't care how many people you kill as long as you take possession of their real estate and prevent them from taking it back. George Washington did something like that, I seem to remember it was called the Battle of Trenton. I may have the name of the town wrong, but let's call it Trenton so I can go on with the story.

The British and the Americans were fighting over Trenton and, as was the custom in those days, they shut down operations and made camp at nightfall. Washington had his people build a string of campfires across his front line, preventing the British from seeing what he was up to. At the dawn's early light, it became evident to the British that the Americans had evacuated their positions in the night. They didn't know where they had gone until a messenger came running back telling them that Washington had captured the next town down the road, then abandoned it and headed for the next town down the road. The British commander concluded that it was this third town that Washington was really after, so he sent all his people there, leaving Trenton unguarded. The Americans then circled around on back roads and took Trenton without firing a shot. It's a good thing, too, otherwise we all might be speaking English today.