Q: How many liberals does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Let George Bush fix it! It’s his fault it’s dark anyway!

Having followed politics in America for more than 30 years, I’ve gotten used to the mud wrestling, the name calling, the delicious ironies and laughable contradictions inherent in any democratic system with free and open debate monitored by a free press and engaged in by some of the most colorful, larger than life personalities one can imagine.

On the left, there’s been Tip O’Neil, a big, blustery Irishman from the back bay of Boston whose love of America and her politics made opposing him such an intellectually challenging and joyful experience. And Paul Simon, the Illinois Senator who was “scary smart” with a marvelously ironic sense of humor and a way of making anyone who came in contact with him feel like they were an intimate friend.

On the right, there was the down home plain speaking Senator from Wyoming Malcolm Wallop. A gentleman in every sense of the word; a fair minded, common sensical sort of fellow with a biting wit and will of iron. He also had a mind like a steel trap and a lawyers command of the facts on just about any issue. Then there was my personal favorite Bob Walker from Pennsylvania. Of all the lawmakers I dealt with when working the Hill oh so many years ago, Bob was the smartest, the funniest, and the most independent cuss I ever came across. Unpredictable to a fault, he’d drive the Republican leadership batty with his principled stands on budget issues. He was also the kindest man I ever met…and one of the least pretentious.

What was truly amazing is that these diverse personalities, from different parts of the country and different backgrounds, worked fairly well together for what we euphemistically call “the common good.” Oh they had fights and battles royale over any number of issues. But when the time came to act, they papered over their differences and did what had to be done.

It was the great Henry Clay who said”

“All legislation, all government, all society is founded upon the principle of mutual concession, politeness, comity, courtesy; upon these everything is based…”

Clay was part of the generation of lawmakers working in the most divisive period of American history; the period from 1820 to 1850 when America was threatened constantly with coming apart at the seams because of slavery. Clay, Daniel Webster, and John C. Calhoun; men from different sections of the country with differing views on slavery, came together on numerous occasions to craft compromises to save the union.

I bring all of this up because the point I’m trying to make is that opposition in wartime absolutely must be principled, with not only clear alternatives offered but at least SOME kind of realization of the consequences that one’s opposition entails.

And moonbats today don’t have a clue. Worse than being stupid, the positions they’re advocating are dangerous to the continued existence of the United States as we know it.

Take this colloquy I had yesterday with Shaun over at Upper Left. His post involved some comments on a Georgia Ann Geyer article with unnamed sources wringing their hands over Iraq. He closes his post with this gem:

“Geyer still seems to have one small blind spot, writing that…

The truth no one really wants to deal with is that this war could very easily be lost by the United States.

No, Georgie Anne. The truth no one really wants to deal with, not even, apparently, you, is that this war has been lost by the United States.”

My response, referring to Geyer’s unnamed sources, was as follows:

The problem isn’t you’re wrong…

The problem is you’re clueless.

What “Generals?”
Whose “military assessment?”
Which “officers?” Which Diplomats?”

Georgia Ann Geyer, I’m sure is a responsible journalist…NOT.

Why does her analysis fly in the face of others opinions who are 1)willing to back up their assessment with some facts; and 2) don’t have some petty ass ax to grind with the Bush administration?

If you stopped cheerleading for people who are killing our men people might take you more seriously.

First up to respond was this clueless customer who has a problem trying to figure out that in war, it’s best that the other guy gets killed, not our guy:

Our “men” are killing more people than kill our “men.” By matters of multitudes. And we started it. I’m not cheerleading anyone over there. We need to get the hell out of there, and to hell with George Fucking Bush.

The fact that not enough of our guys are dying seems to upset this fellow. Now I know it may be unfashionable, but I think I’ll go to the dictionary and find the definition of “disloyal.” To wit:

“...showing an absence of allegiance, devotion, obligation, faith, or support…”

If complaining about how many of the enemy are being killed isn’t disloyal, what is?

Then, our good friend Shaun weighs in. You’d think that he’d come up with some reasoned riposte to my critique of Geyer’s use of unnamed sources…but no. Being a moonbat, he goes for the ad hominem attack:

Well, I imagine Mr. Hawk is of the ‘chicken’ subspecies. Those are the ones that usually conflate critcism of Bushco’s military adventurism with “cheerleading for people who are killing our men.”

Yes…perhaps I shouldn’t have used the word “cheerleading”...how about “defeatism?” And as for the appellation “chicken,” I assume you’re referring to my not being over in Iraq (being an old fat man going deaf I doubt I could do anybody any good over there).

Since I once was one, my support for troops detailed to combat without a clear, achievable and sustainable mission is absolute. Since I once was one, I understand well that the best way to support troops in that situation is to get them the hell out of it.

Just because you were “one” (I assume that makes you a vet, thank you for your service) doesn’t make you any more or less qualified to comment on the military. Some of the dumbest things I’ve heard said about the war have come from conservatives with military experience (Ollie North for one). Besides, I’m not calling you stupid, I’m saying you’re disloyal…or maybe you’re both?

In fact, among the “people who are killing our men” one is compelled to include the chicken hawk civilian commanders that ordered them into that situation. Those are the ones that are most directly empowered to save our men’s (and women’s – we got us an equal opportunity Army, risk-wise, these days) lives by bringing them home poste haste.

Leaving out the fallacious argument that Rumsfeld et. al. are “killing our men” because they’re not “bringing them home poste haste”—circular logic at best—I don’t see what you think the consequences would be for the US in either the short term or the long term.

I realize this involves a little bit of thought…or more likely, you could give a shit what the consequences would be. What a nice luxury you have compared to the people who’ve been elected to think about those things!

To say that the results of an American premature pullout in Iraq or Afghanistan would be a catastrophe is an understatement. I know that you and your lefty buds would go into fits of orgasmic ecstasy to see the US humiliated and prostrate before the beheaders, the torturers, and the murderers of our citizens. For the celebrations would not be confined to Tikrit and Fallujah you ninny! They’d be dancing in the streets from the West Bank to Teheran. And the fascists you’d like to see take over in Iraq would be emboldened to the point that no friend of the US in the Middle East would be safe.

Why don’t you just come out and say you want to see the US humbled, that this would be a “good thing?” If you don’t think that such an outcome would have real world consequences, look at the immediate aftermath of the fall of Saigon. Between 1975 and 1979, a dozen countries had pro-US governments overthrown and replaced by communist tyrannies that made the autocrats they replaced look like kindergarten teachers.

And that, of course, is the trouble with moonbats like you. A reflexive anti-Americanism, an intellectual disconnect between cause and effect, and a paranoid, ignorant outlook using an outmoded, outdated, discredited worldview (economic determinism) that’s been tossed on the ash heap of history because it’s been proven in country after country and society after society to be a load of crap.

It’s why you lose elections…and why you’ll never be trusted with power by the American people.