Kamala Harris and William Westmoreland

When systems are on the wrong track, no-change loyalists are exactly the wrong people to elevate as standard bearers.

Kamala Harris has been sponsored and promoted because she’s a perfect product of the DNC/corporate system. She has certain attributes the system values. But those same attributes that have helped her to flourish within the DNC or within San Francisco politics are not necessarily those that will make her an effective president. Quite the reverse, in fact.

For the sake of comparison, let’s consider the career of General William Westmoreland (Westy), most famous (or infamous) as America’s commanding general in Vietnam from 1965 to 1968. Westy was a perfect product of the U.S. Army system. He looked the part of a commanding general: tall, handsome, lantern-jawed, with superb military bearing. Loyal to the system and utterly reliable, he had done well at lower levels of command, performing best as a regimental colonel but also doing well enough as a major general and division commander.

General William Westmoreland

Westy, with his immaculate military bearing, wasn’t imaginative, wasn’t especially intelligent or discerning, wasn’t open to new ideas, while he was very much jealous of his own image and power. Promoted to four-star general and given command of all troops in Vietnam, he failed. He fought Vietnam as if he were back in World War II, focusing on “body count” through attritional warfare and massive firepower. He reduced a complex political struggle to an exercise in finding, fixing, and killing, but the more people he killed, the more enemies he created. By 1968 it became clear Westy was the wrong man to lead in Vietnam, so he was booted upstairs to Army Chief of Staff, largely a ceremonial position where he could do the least harm.