WALLACE: Some pundits have suggested that perhaps just like General Dwight Eisenhower in the early ’50s, that you might at some point take off your uniform and run for president. Any interest in that, sir?<\/p>\n
PETRAEUS: None, Chris, at all. Thank you. I have great respect for those who do choose to serve our country that way. I’ve chosen to serve our country in uniform.
\nAnd I think that General Sherman had it right when he gave what is now commonly referred to as a Shermanesque response when asked a similar question.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
In case that wasn’t quite clear enough, Wallace pushed a little further: “So are you giving a Shermanesque response — if elected, you will not serve?” Petraeus dashed Republican hopes without hesitation: “I am, Chris. And I don’t think it would ever get to that point anyway.”<\/p>\n
Until one of the Republican candidates can crack the 50% favorability plateau, expect there to be ongoing grumbling about a white-knight candidate who can swoop in and save the party from electoral ruin. I’m not quite sure who that might be — Jeb? Cheney? Newt? — but the fact that the talk continues at all helps highlight the ongoing Republican predicament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Widespread disappointment within the Republican ranks over their field of presidential candidates took a bizarre turn a couple of months ago when several leading conservative voices said the party should give up on the 12 or so politicians who want the nomination — and go after a general who doesn’t. Everyone from the New York […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14033\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}