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discussion of how the US has taken the Hobbesian tasks of the world away from the EU skirt-chasers, who are now vying to reach a Kantian model of "tyranny through perfection" in their cocoon/bubble, surpasses anything the intellectually bereft Dhimmi-crats can muster.
The latest Kagan analysis gets to the heart of the matter, the perpetual spineless Democ-rat propensity to take "French leave" and wave the white flag whenever things get tough. Except for one Democrat, whose spine is NOT shaped like a pretzel.
Joe Lieberman is his name and his display of moral character and steadfastness has driven the already frenzied nutroots into cataleptic hysteric fits. Check out one example from a certified girlie-twerp whose histrionic language betrays his own froth-at-the-mouth projections. Kagan makes some good points:
If Lieberman loses, it will not even be because he supported the war. Almost every leading Democratic politician and foreign policymaker, and many a liberal columnist, supported the war. Nor will he lose because he opposes withdrawing troops from Iraq this year. Most top Democratic policymakers agree that early withdrawal would be a mistake. Nor, finally, is it because he has been too chummy with President Bush. Lieberman has offered his share of criticism of the administration's handling of the Iraq war and of many other administration policies.
No, Lieberman's sin is of a different order. Lieberman stands condemned today because he didn't recant. He didn't say he was wrong. He didn't turn on his former allies and condemn them. He didn't claim to be the victim of a hoax. He didn't try to pretend that he never supported the war in the first place. He didn't claim to be led into support for the war by a group of writers and intellectuals whom he can now denounce. He didn't go through a public show of agonizing and phony soul-baring and apologizing in the hopes of resuscitating his reputation, as have some noted "public intellectuals."
These have been the chosen tactics of self-preservation ever since events in Iraq started to go badly and the war became unpopular. Prominent intellectuals, both liberal and conservative, have turned on their friends and allies in an effort to avoid opprobrium for a war they publicly supported. Journalists have turned on their fellow journalists in an effort to make them scapegoats for the whole profession. Politicians have twisted themselves into pretzels to explain away their support for the war or, better still, to blame someone else for persuading them to support it.
Kagan finally finishes off the slackers and stragglers that the Democ-rat Party collects like carrion attracts flies.
Apparently, amazingly, dispiritingly, it all works. At least in the short run, dishonesty pays. Dissembling pays. Forgetting your past writings and statements pays. Condemning those with whom you once agreed pays. Phony self-flagellation followed by self-righteous self-congratulation pays. The only thing that doesn't pay is honesty. If Joe Lieberman loses, it will not be because he supported the war or even because he still supports it. It will be because he refused to choose one of the many dishonorable paths open to him to salvage his political career.
He is the last honest man, and he may pay the price for it. At least he will be able to sleep at night. And he can take some solace in knowing that history, at least an honest history, will be kinder to him than was his own party.
Moral courage is something JFK wrote [or ghost-wrote] about long ago, and since then the Democ-rat Party has become the complete victim of consultants seeking the expedient will o' the wisp called popularity. Not consistency. Not any sort of straight and narrow. Just a big tent that ostentatiously kicks out anyone who does not claim to be healed. Just a hyperventilating bunch of glad-handers eager to glom onto "the next big thing." Just a collection of riff-raff whose beliefs are as changeable as the weather.
I actually detest this war intensely, believe Rumsfeld should be cashiered and publicly frog-marched to a parade ground where his epaulets should be torn off for his consistent criminal incompetence.
But the US has to persist in this fiasco because the consequences of pulling out are much worse than the terrible situation we are in at the moment.
The motives to leave Iraq are basically emotional and overwrought, rather than reasoned out with an eye to US long-term national interests.
Which is why the Democrat Party cannot be entrusted with America's national security.
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