The worst general in American history?

While Tom Ricks is away from his blog, he has selected a few of his
favorite posts to re-run. We will be posting a few every day until he returns.
This originally ran on June 2, 2010.

That was the discussion I was having yesterday with several friends. Here is
my ranking of their nominees:

1. Douglas MacArthur

2. Benedict Arnold

3. Ned Almond

4.
Tommy R. Franks

5. William Westmoreland

6. George McClellan

7.
Ambrose Burnside

8. Horatio Gates

It was my contest, so I declared MacArthur the No. 1 loser, because of his
unique record of being insubordinate to three presidents (Hoover, Roosevelt and
Truman) as well as screwing up the Korean War. Plus additional negative points
for his role in the gassing and suppression of the Bonus Marchers in 1932. You
can't defend a country by undermining it.

It really is extraordinary how the Army has extirpated his memory. The
influence of Marshall, Eisenhower and Bradley lives on, while MacArthur has been
treated as a historical dead end. Kind of amazing, considering he was a general
for 26 years, was the Army chief of staff, received the Medal of Honor, fought
in three wars and was a senior commander in two.

army.mil