Banners in the Dust

Poets' Coroner
Mr. Peperium

“…We have slain Hector, the period
Of all Troy’s glorie, to whose worth all vow’d as to a god.”
This said, a worke not worthy him he set to. On both feete
He bor’d the nerves through from the heele to th’ankle, and then knit
Both to his chariot with a thong of whitleather, his head
Trailing the center. Up he got to chariot where he laid
The armes repurchac’d, and scourg’d on his horse, that freely flew.
A whirlewind made of startled dust drave with them as they drew…

--Homer’s Iliads, The Twenty-Second Booke

Even a division-commander was overcome. The impetuous Hays had had two horses shot under him, and out of twenty orderlies he had but six left. In the intense emotionalism of the moment, he expressed himself by kissing his young aide, David Shields. Then he exclaimed, “Boys, give me a flag!” He called out to two of his aides, “Get a flag, Corts; get a flag, Dave, and come on!”

Then each of them trailing a captured flag behind his horse’s tail, they rode along the divisional line, while the men were alternately firing at the retreating enemy and cheering and throwing their caps in the air, as their beloved general rode by.

--George R. Stewart, Pickett’s Charge, a microhistory of the final attack at Gettysburg, July 3, 1863

In an era when an education still meant a classical education, it is impossible not to assume Brigadier General Hays knew exactly whom he was imitating as the remnants of the great frontal assault drifted back to Seminary Ridge. I used to think his action ungallant or, to use a word wildly out-of-context, unsportsmanlike. And Homer himself, according to Chapman, calls it “A worke not worthy him”.

But I’m not so certain now. The enemy limping back to their positions across the shallow valley were, after all, members of the Army of Northern Virginia. Until this moment that army had triumphed over the Army of the Potomac on virtually every field. They had become for the Confederacy, “the period / Of all Troy’s glorie” and Robert E. Lee had become a man, “to whose worth all vow’d as to a god.” Reading the passage from Homer over again and making the not unlikely assumption that Hays had had that passage pounded into his head since boyhood, the vindictive insult starts to look as if it sprang ultimately from a profound respect for an adversary few men in blue could believe they had just beaten.

Comments

[Mario mandingo]

I haven't read yet , but welcome back - I barely survived the lack of culture absent due to your vacation.

[Mrs. Peperium]

I'm very glad you survived.

[Card's wife]

Mrs. P, did you get my emails?

[Mrs. Peperium]

About Buick? Yes, it set off a fire. Mr. P called a friend over there who told him the dad of Little Bertie's very best buddy for the last 2 years got a new job in Boston during our time out east. He had taken it and they had already packed up and moved there... As the family was supposed to be at the Cape at this point, returning Sunday with play date scheduled for Monday with the boys -- this was more than alarming. Especially with more investigation, we were told the house was sold and they were gone -forever. And no note or anything. We had to tell Little Bertie. To say he was heartbroken was an understatement.

This morning I called around some more and found that, perhaps, it is the dad that has already moved to Boston. Mom and kids are on Cape with grandparents and due back Sunday (we think) to stay here until the house is sold (which could take a year given the market). But we are still not sure. Little Bertie is doing somewhat better. He had a good playdate today with RKFDIL's friends. They played house. He was the man of the house and the girls were the dogs. I caught him throwing balls and telling the girls to fetch them. And they actually were...on all fours...

I then had to sit the girls down and instruct them they must never crawl for a man. Little Bertie was then told he must never treat girls like they are dogs. Then as punishment, Little Bertie was required to open all the doors for the girls for the rest of the afternoon.

I'm never going to make it to middle school.

[Card's wife]

So they moved and didn't tell you? Hmmm.

And now the email about Oyster Wednesdays...

[Fiendish]

Now really, these young ladies were trying to cheer up Little Bertie. Where is Pres. Bush and his pardon power when you really need him?

[Mrs. Peperium]

Card's wife, oysters on Wednesdays? Better try sending that one again. By the way, The Fiendish One has become a very lavish dispenser of the humble bivalve. He treated me to them (Wellfleets) in the basement of Grand Central. What's more, I allowed him to...

[Mrs. Peperium]

Fiendish, per Bush's pardon:

Bush Amazes
By Ben Stein

This George Bush fellow has major league cojones. It really amazes me.

Start with the obvious:

The case against "Scooter" Libby was a total fraud. Completely bogus. The publicity-mad demoness Valerie Plame was not a covert overseas agent at the time the whole megillah about her erupted. So there was no, none, nada, law breaking by reporting that she was a CIA employee.

Second, there was no reason for the special prosecutor, the full on publicity hound Mr. Fitzgerald, to have even gone on with the investigation for a week or even a day. He knew in the first 24 hours who had told Bob Novak that Ms. Wilson was the one who sent her husband, the Democrat operative, de facto if not de jure, Joe Wilson, to search for facts about uranium in a little known African nation called Niger. And Mr. Fitzgerald knew it was not Karl Rove or Scooter Libby. Why then did he continue the investigation and torment the many totally innocent people he tortured? Why did he drive honest civil servants to despair and impoverishment when he basically had no mission?

(And isn't he a lot like a certain prosecutor in North Carolina who pilloried totally innocent Duke University La Crosse players in a totally trumped up, absolutely bogus case when there was no solid evidence against them at all? Is it not frightening what an out of control prosecutor can do in a free country? The wicked man in North Carolina faces prosecution and has already had other sanctions. Is this being considered for Mr. Fitzgerald?)

Third, while prosecutors can do almost anything they damned well please, it is not considered de rigueur to prosecute for perjury in an investigation in which there is no underlying crime. But that's precisely what happened in the Libby case. Mr. Fitzgerald prosecuted for perjury even though there was no crime he was investigating. It was just a mammoth unnecessary, phony fishing expedition to snare Bush operatives that caught Libby. He had been asked countless questions and finally got a few wrong and so the prosecutor sprung.

The judge should have just tossed out the case on the first day of the trial. There simply was nothing there but prosecutorial overreach. But the trial went on. A Washington, D.C. jury -- a pool of men and women who were confused, to put it charitably -- found for the prosecution and then the real evil began.

At the trial, the prosecutor had conceded that there was no underlying crime and that Libby had not "outed" anyone. But then in the sentencing phase the prosecutor completely falsified himself and claimed Libby had done serious national security damage -- by naming an employee of the CIA who was not covert and not overseas, contrary to his statements at trial.

The judge, who must have been a real whiz in law school (yes, I know he was appointed by Bush), sentenced Libby, a first offender who will never be in court again, to two and a half years in prison. It was insane.

Now, enter George W Bush. Desperately wounded by the Iraq War, basically friendless in Washington, D.C., he was not expected to risk one iota of his dwindling political piggy bank to rescue Scooter -- who had, of course, been chief of staff for Bush's Vice President, the cordially disliked Dick Cheney. Why should he? He has enough troubles.

But Mr. Bush saw a basic wrong. A man who should never have seen the inside of a courtroom as a defendant had been pilloried for no good reason and then sentenced to a Stalinist sentence. His basic decency overrode political and PR considerations. He simply did the right thing. He let an innocent man breathe the air of freedom. He used the power of his office to say "enough" to an out of control prosecutor, an out of control grand jury, and an out of control judge and jury. In a simple phrase, once again, he did the right thing regardless of cost.

I am not sure if this was his finest hour, but it was a fine hour.

---------------

One stuff cowboy pilot, that President Bush is.