Asking ‘If’
Has Gen. David Petraeus’ week gone from bad to verse?
Speaking Wednesday at the National Press Club, the commander of forces in Iraq was asked what he made of the MoveOn.org ad that called him “General Betray Us,” among other impolite assertions.
“I was sent a poem, by Rudyard Kipling — actually the morning that the ad came out — from my hometown, an old friend,” he said. “And it’s the poem ‘If.’ … I took some strength, I think, from that.”
If you’re not familiar with the poem, it begins, “If you can keep your head when all about you/Are losing theirs and blaming it on you/If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you” and goes on in a similar fashion.
After going through all the “ifs,” it concludes: “You’ll be a man, my son!”
