No matter which side of the political spectrum you're on, this should have you nodding your head.

One of the most effective forms of military maneuver is the Penetration. A Penetration is a narrowly based attack focused on a deep objective. An historical example would be the German attack during the Battle of the Bulge in December, 1944. Another might be (but combined with a Vertical Envelopment) Operation Market Garden. Both of these have their 65th anniversaries this year. The objective is to get into your enemy's rear area and destroy their re-supply capability and their Command and Control. After that, you can destroy what's left of your enemy's combat capability that has no organization and is running out of gas and bullets.

The counter to the Penetration is to attack it on its exposed flanks. For the Penetration to succeed, the attacker must have the will to stay focused on their ultimate objective and not throw off excesive combat power trying to defend its flanks.

I tell you this because Godin's article says to me we are too easily distracted by the TV News and lack the ability to focus on the main objective. Indeed, we have difficulty agreeing on what the main objective is.

See if you don't agree.

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/10/the-problem-with-cable-news.html