Throughout our history when the Nation was faced with crisis it turned to a military officer to lead the People to safety. Four of our greatest Presidents were former military officers. The first was General George Washington the man who led the Continental Army to victory over the British. Then General Andrew Jackson, the hero of the Battle of New Orleans, found a country ruled by a single, corrupt political party and formed a new party, the modern Democratic Party, to fight for the common man. Col. Theodore Roosevelt, the man who led the cavalry charge up San Juan Hill, found a Nation increasingly controlled by Robber Barons who used monopolies and trusts to stifle the economic aspirations of the People. Using the Presidency as a “Bully Pulpit” he forced through reforms that broke up the monopolies and trusts spurring economic growth for everyone. After the Second World War with the world economy devastated and the threat of an aggressive Soviet Union, the Nation turned to Five-Star General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the man who led the Allies to victory over Germany, to lead it and the world to safety and prosperity.
This history of successful Presidents who came out of the military is why when the name David Petraeus began to be mentioned in connection with a Presidential run in 2012, alarms went off in the White House, on Capitol Hill and throughout Washington, D. C.
General David Petraeus is the candidate Barack Obama and the Democrats fear most. I am not the first to call for a Petraeus 2012 campaign. Of course no one in the Main Stream Media would dare mention the name Petraeus and the word President in the same paragraph. The Chicago Gang would close them down. Not so the foreign press.
"Americans have never been so disgusted with their politicians. More than three-quarters of Americans disapprove of Congress. President Barack Obama's favourability ratings have slumped to below 50 per cent and he is no longer trusted or believed by many who voted for him.
Republicans are faring little better and the growth of the Tea Party movement reflects the widespread disgust with Washington and the political class.
Incumbents across the board are vulnerable in November's mid-term elections.Many voters yearn for an outsider, someone with authenticity,integrity and proven accomplishment. Someone who has not spent their life plotting how to ascend the greasy pole, adjusting every utterance for maximum political advantage.In this toxic climate, perhaps the only public institution that has increased in prestige in recent years is the American military. Its officers are looked upon, as General George Patton once noted, as "the modern representatives of the demigods and heroes of antiquity".
Where better to look for Obama's successor, therefore, than in the uniformed ranks? Not since 1952, when a certain Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe during the Second World War, was elected President, have the chances of a military man winning the White House been more propitious.
Within those ranks, no one stands out like General David Petraeus, head of United States Central Command, leader of 230,000 troops and commander of United States forces in two wars. Having masterminded the Iraq surge, the stunning military gambit that seized victory from the jaws of defeat, he is now directing an equally daunting undertaking in Afghanistan.
Petraeus, 57, has survived the collapse of his parachute 60 feet above the ground. After he was shot in the chest during a training exercise and endured five hours surgery, the then battalion commander refused to lie in hospital recuperating.Demanding that the tubes be removed from his arm, he declared: "I am not the norm."
A Princeton PhD, he has revolutionised the way America fights its wars, inculcating the doctrine of counter-insurgency in a new generation of officers who have finally put the ghost of Vietnam to rest. At West Point he qualified for medical school just to prove he could, never bothering to apply.
The problem is that Petraeus appears to have no desire to be commander- in-chief. His denials of any political ambition have come close to the famous statement by General William Sherman. The former American Civil War commander, rejecting the possibility of running for president in 1884 by stating: "I will not accept if nominated and will not serve if elected."
Yet speculation about "Petraeus in 2012" persists. The White House is wary of him just as President Bill Clinton was wary of General Colin Powell in 1995. Rumours that he wants to run have even reached Downing Street.
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Petraeus, wire-thin and an accomplished runner, is known for being one of the most competitive men on the planet and he lacks nothing in the self-assurance department. No one has ever accused him of being deficient in his sense of patriotism.
Whether as an independent or as Republican, he could be a powerful presidential candidate and a potentially accomplished President. He may not want to run but if the clamour to draft him grows he might just find the call of duty - not to mention the contest of a lifetime - difficult to resist." Toby Harnden's, American Way, David Petraeus for President, Run General Run, telegraph.co.uk/news, April 3, 2010
