In an article  in the Washington Post last week, Peter Baker and Thomas Ricks said that three retired generals had turned down an offer to become what the authors called the "Czar" for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, working out of the White House.  This new post is, at least in the article, vaguely defined and ahistoric, meaning that we have not had such an official before.  To most of us, this function would seem to be the role of the president himself.  The only general quoted is retired Marine general John J. "Jack" Sheehan.  He offered as his somewhat inglorious reason for not responding to the president's offer that it was likely that he would get an ulcer in the job and that seemed too great a sacrifice for a job in which general Sheehan had no faith.Presumably concerned lest the public be under a misapprehension about his views on service to the country following his "no ulcer" criterion, General Sheehan expanded on his...(Read Full Post)