Right Wing Nut House

Superb article by David Nather today in CQ Politics about the “quagmire” in which the anti-war movement finds itself.

I should start out by saying that the lack of progress made by the coalition of groups who want to bring the troops home does not mean that the American people have still bought into the war, or George Bush, or the surge, or anything else. By clear majorities, the American people believe the war was a mistake and want the troops home.

But…

The inconvenient truth that the anti-war crowd can’t seem to grasp is that the American people are also ambivalent about how they wish our Iraq misadventure to end. For that reason, the people are all over the lot on the timing of troop reductions, the number of troops to come home, and what kind of mess we should be leaving in Iraq after we’re gone.

Nather grasps this which is why the article is so good. And he points up many of the problems - both internal and external to the coalition:

These are frustrating times for the collection of political, veterans, labor, and grass-roots organizations that make up the modern anti-war movement. At a time when a solid majority of the American public wants to pull some or all troops out of Iraq, these groups have been unable to turn the public support for their goals into enough votes to get a withdrawal proposal through the Senate, much less override a presidential veto.

Some of the groups have made tactical blunders along the way — most famously, the MoveOn.org advertisement in The New York Times last month deriding Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq — that have alienated their own Democratic allies. But that isn’t why the movement to end the Iraq War has failed to gain more traction in Congress, according to Democratic lawmakers and outside analysts of the movement.

Instead, they say, it’s because the groups simply have won all the Democratic votes they’re going to get. The only place to pick up more votes, at least for the next year, is on the Republican side.

I said at the time that the “Betray-us” ad was “the dumbest, the most spectacularly ignorant political maneuver in modern history.” To continue the idiocy by featuring the ad on their website as Moveon is doing only highlights their tone deafness about the nature of politics and what it takes to be right and win at the same time.

And the gimlet eyed hard left radicals at Moveon and Code Pink have no intention of working with Doubting Thomas Republicans to bring about a true national consensus on when and how to leave Iraq:

Most of the groups in the anti-war coalition have appeared unwilling to work with Republican skeptics of the war on a plan they could all support. “They’re exercising their constitutional rights, and that’s fine, but by and large they aren’t doing anything to help us find a positive solution,” said Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who has been pushing for goals, rather than deadlines, for troop withdrawals based on the recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group headed by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Democratic Rep. Lee H. Hamilton of Indiana.

Some anti-war activists say they’re just not interested in dealing with the GOP and want to apply more pressure to the party now in control. “We’re looking at some of the Democrats who were voted in on a platform of fighting against the war, and we’re not really seeing that,” said LeiLani Dowell, a member of the Troops Out Now Coalition, which wants to end war funding and staged a rally at the Capitol last month that reportedly drew fewer than 1,000 people.

But in the view of lawmakers from both parties, the groups have also failed to connect with potential GOP allies because they have unrealistic expectations of how quickly the United States could withdraw from Iraq.

To coin a phrase, “Aye, there’s the rub.” The de facto position of Code Pink, Moveon, and most others in the anti-war coalition is an immediate withdrawal from Iraq - a repeat of Saigon, 1975 complete with the last helicopter lifting off the roof of the unfinished, overbudget boondoggle that is the American embassy being built in Baghdad. They would like nothing better than to see a humiliating bug out of American troops, preferably within 6 months of the day it is begun.

That ain’t going to happen. Even rational Democrats don’t want us to leave that way. At least most of the Democratic timetables include a semblance of rationality in that they stretch the withdrawal out over a year or more. The Moveon bunch wants every American soldier - no residual forces, no bases, - out in 6 months. It’s madness and Republicans won’t even discuss it:

“I think they’re actually counterproductive. They don’t seem very thoughtful,” said Republican Rep. Bob Inglis of South Carolina, who opposed President Bush’s troop increase this year but wants any troop withdrawals to be based on benchmarks of progress in Iraq rather than a timetable. Democratic Rep. Zack Space, a freshman who will be up for re-election in a Republican-leaning part of Ohio next year, said of the antiwar groups, “By embracing a kind of impractical view of the situation, I think they hurt their cause.”

Ya think? The last Gallup poll showed 18% of Americans believe we should follow the advice of the Moveon crowd and bring the troops home now without regard for what is going on in Iraq or even the military practicality. We would have to leave vast stocks of military equipment in Iraq if we simply loaded 160,000 troops on planes and flew them home. Billions of dollars of stuff left to rot - or be used by both friend and foe in whatever kind of country Iraq will become after we leave it in the lurch.

That 18% is half that of the number who don’t want any timetable or benchmarks at all - 38% want to stay until the “job is done.” What does that say about the political acumen of the anti-war coalition?

And their public personae is nothing to get excited about:

Demonstrators from Code Pink, a peace group formed just before the Iraq War started, routinely disrupt congressional hearings and speeches, drawing the wrath of even Democratic lawmakers who share their views. Last month, when members of the group interrupted a House Armed Services Committee hearing where Petraeus was testifying, Chairman Ike Skelton of Missouri angrily described them to a colleague — and to a national television audience — with a vulgarity.

Even the most anti-war Democrats are scratching their heads at activist Cindy Sheehan’s decision to run for the Democratic nomination for the House in San Francisco next year against Speaker Nancy Pelosi. They insist Pelosi has fought the war every way she can. “This isn’t a weakness for her. It’s one of her strengths,” said one House Democrat who did not want to be identified speaking candidly about his disagreements with the groups.

I suppose this is to be expected of radicals in any age. I fondly recall the Robin Hood aura that surrounded many anti-war types when I was in school during Viet Nam. I would think that young people today would probably look up to the Cindy Sheehans of the anti-war movement in a similar fashion.

But I also remember my anti-war parents thinking the radicals at the time were scruffy looking as well as being a little dangerous. They were used to the 1930’s radicals who were anything but scruffy looking but perhaps even more dangerous considering from where their orders came. Moscow liked their stooges and plants to blend in to the background.

This crowd is scruffy looking and politically inept - which makes for a not very dangerous coalition:

But most of the Republicans who have voiced skepticism about the war say they’ve seen little, if any, effort by the anti-war groups to find a compromise they could all support. “There were so many attempts to score media points rather than actually engage,” said Phil English of Pennsylvania, one of the House Republicans who opposed the troop “surge” in Iraq. He said he has seen anti-war demonstrators in his Erie-area district with out-of-state license plates. One anti-war group, he said, invited him to a rally in August with just a week’s notice — and after his schedule was full — then announced at the rally that he had failed to show up.

Some groups say they have not given up on bringing members of Congress around to their side, but many activists say they have grown so frustrated with Congress’ failure to end the war that they’re in no mood to try to reason with lawmakers from either party. “I think people are done being polite and obsequious with their members of Congress. People are fed up,” said Sue Udry, legislative coordinator for United for Peace and Justice.

Somehow, I don’t think Sue or any of her friends are going to be writing a sequel to “How to Win Friends and Influence People.”

The fact that both the radicals and liberal Democrats in Congress are dealing with a severely wounded, lame duck President with approval numbers nearing Nixon territory only highlights their total inability to win the day. Politics is the art of the possible. And both the hard right and hard left have always had trouble defining what is possible and have reached instead for the unattainable. Failure and defeat follows such folly.

We are going to leave Iraq - probably long before George Bush wishes we would. But we are not going to leave on terms set by the radicals in the anti-war movement. It would be best for all if Bush, the Democrats, and the Republicans could all sit down and work to get us out of Iraq as quickly as possible with the least damage to our national security interests.

That’s what grown ups would do. Unfortunately, I hold out little hope for such a meeting of the minds given the poisonous political atmosphere and the constant yammering from the anti-war left who have sabotaged their own cause time and time again.

It occurred to me last week during the imbroglio over Barack Obama’s missing flag pin that the meaning of “patriotism” was as elastic as a rubber band - that the word means entirely different things to different people depending on your political point of view.

In the comments to this post at Balloon Juice where my integrity was called into question, some ignorant commenter (who didn’t bother to read what I had written about the Obama flap) said that those on the right who consider themselves patriotic are, in fact, nationalists instead.

Indeed, I think the fellow just proved the million monkey theory. Because at bottom, that very well may be the defining difference between left and right when it comes to patriotism.

The lefties hate it when I engage in these little verbal exercises because they believe such archaic concepts as “meaning” and “intent” belong in Derrida’s grave. They wish words to have their meaning obscured by ignoring convention and definition. And intent doesn’t matter half as much as how they reserve the right unto themselves to define what you are saying. Of course, this makes it impossible to communicate with many liberals on a rational or logical level because the sands of dialogue keep shifting underneath your feet. It becomes pretty hard to talk to someone whose definitional constructs regarding words and their usage is based not on an agreed upon framework but rather whatever the hell they wish to pull out of thin air at the moment.

And given the average emotional temperature of your average liberal, chances are you are better off talking to a stone. At least a rock won’t drive you nuts by putting words into your mouth or bringing up subject matter wholly unrelated to the discussion.

This was never more on display than in the brouhaha over the flag pin. It seems that the sticking point in the debate occurred over the use of the term “patriotism” with those on the right believing it means love of country while those on the left believing it means…love of country.

Before you think I’m being disingenuous, allow me to explain. I think it is apparent that some on the right love America in a different way than some on the left. Think of the right’s love of country as that of a young man for a hot young woman. The passion of such love brooks no criticism and in their eyes, the woman can do nothing wrong. They place the woman on a pedestal and fail to see any flaws in her beauty, only perfection.

On the other hand, love of country by many liberals is more intellectualized - perhaps the kind of love we might feel for a wife of many years. The white hot passion may be gone and her flaws might drive you up a wall at times. And it is difficult not to dwell on her imperfections But there is still a deep, abiding affection that allows you to love her despite the many blemishes and defects they see.

It isn’t that most on the left love America any less than those on the right. They simply see a different entity - a tainted but beloved object that has gotten better with age.

Having said this, I should point out that the insufferable way in which the left seeks to claim some kind of moral superiority for their view of patriotism by belittling and demonizing the way the right expresses their love of country is unconscionable. There are those on the right who accuse the left of lacking in patriotism - something I have abhorred in the past and will continue to do so. Many conservatives defend dissent even in time of war as a patriotic exercise especially those who have their own beef with the way the war is being run. But I have yet to see anyone on the left take a fellow liberal to task for questioning the methods by which conservative choose to express their love of country.

Indeed, the very idea of a heartfelt expression or outward manifestation of patriotism smacks of “nationalism” to these liberals. And that perhaps, is the real divide between conservatives and liberals when it comes to a definitional framework regarding the use of the word “patriotism.”

Webster’s definition informs us that nationalism is “a sense of national consciousness exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups.” Further, a nationalist is “a member of a political party or group advocating national independence or strong national government.”. While I would hesitate to say that patriotism and nationalism are the same thing, there is clearly a strong correlation where the definition of nationalism augments or supplements the definition of patriotism which is defined as “love for or devotion to one’s country.”

It should go without saying that liberals despise the concept of nationalism. In this, they are not entirely off base. Most of the evils of the 20th century can be traced to nationalistic impulses in Germany, Japan, the old Soviet Union (Despite their “all men are brothers” rhetoric, the Soviets never had any intention of allowing independent communist states. Their expressed desire was that the revolution be controlled by Moscow.), and the early 20th century saw nationalist movements destabilizing the Austria-Hungarian empire as well as super-nationalistic sentiment in Europe leading the continent to war.

But whether deliberately or not, the left confuses that virulent kind of nationalism with the simple expressions of patriotism most Americans see as harmless and uplifting. Yes there are those on the right who have a “my country right or wrong” attitude where a mindless form of nationalism has taken over and a creeping authoritarianism is expressed by a slavish devotion to a man like Bush. There are also aspects of militarism at large in these quarters where the military can do no wrong and any criticism of the armed forces is tantamount to treason.

I am not denying any of this. I am simply saying that this is a small minority of Americans (whose numbers are blown all of out proportion thanks to the internet). For the left to paint all conservatives and all Americans who express their love of country in a more demonstrable fashion than liberals as xenophobes and simple minded, brainwashed automatons is outrageously arrogant. It stinks of class warfare as much as it animates any criticism for the right’s overly nationalistic impulses. According to many on the left, that kind of patriotic display is reserved for the rubes in flyover country and can safely be ridiculed as the mouthings of ignorant, bible reading, goober chewing yahoos who are too stupid to “vote their own interest” we are told after every election won by a conservative.

The idea that nationalism is bad in and of itself and any manifestation of it must be stamped out is ludicrous. But you’d never know it by listening to how the left constantly denigrates people who feel proud to express their love of the United States for all to see. Of course waving the flag or wearing a flag pin doesn’t make one any more or less of a patriot. Except many liberals will remind you that the superior patriot does neither, that such vulgar displays in fact show one to be a mindless stooge or worse, a towering hypocrite.

The idea of American Exceptionalism has taken a beating in recent years because of this overt fear on the part of the left that believing America to be special smacks of the kind of nationalism that had Europe marching off to war in 1914 or Germans goose stepping under the Brandenburg Gate in 1939. Nothing could be further from the truth. You don’t have to read Howard Zinn or Noam Chomsky to rid yourself of the notion “my country right or wrong.” And if that is the only education you allow yourself about America and her past, I pity you. Nor do you need any special knowledge vouchsafed those lucky lefties who are able to see through Bushitler’s lies in order to oppose the President on many issues. Unless you are a blind, mindless partisan, such wisdom comes from picking up the daily newspaper and reading it every once and a while.

In short, the privileged moral position the left seeks to occupy on the question of patriotism is an arrogant lie - a belief that those who are more nationalistic in their expressing love of country are not only wrong but dangerous. I hate to disabuse my lefty friends of this notion that patriotism can only be defined as the last refuge of scoundrels but the kind of nationalism expressed by most on the right is in fact healthy and sincere form of patriotism. There is not a whiff of authoritarianism or militarism except in the fevered minds and paranoid imaginings of those who either don’t understand the right’s patriotism or refuse to recognize it as genuine.

What it comes down to is that I am a patriotic nationalist. Or perhaps a nationalistic patriot. And I believe this view is reflected by many on the right as well as those who through gesture and action, choose to overtly express their pride and love of the United States.

This is not a cause for concern. Nor should it occasion ridicule or condemnation. It is simply the way the majority of us choose to be. And for the left to besmirch those who through word or deed outwardly demonstrate their affection for the nation of their birth is perhaps the most unpatriotic thing they can do.

This blog post originally appears in The American Thinker

Robert Novak, who wrote the column that exposed the Plame connection to Joe Wilson’s trip to Niger, has been trying unsuccessfully to set the record straight regarding the “outing” of Wilson’s wife for a long time.

Novak’s problem has been that the Plame narrative, created by Democrats and the media, has little room for the truth. The story began as a myth, morphed into a legend, and is only now being examined as history. That last step will occur in a vacuum, of interest only to future academics and those who seek to place truth above politics.

For indeed, most have given up trying to alter the narrative, soon to be immortalized in film as the portrayal of an evil administration, hell bent on going to war, which tried to stifle and smear the heroic Mr. and Mrs. Wilson to hide their nefarious plans.

The narrative is tailor made for Hollywood. The truth, as Mr. Novak points out in this article in The Hill, is a little less dramatic and quite a bit more problematic for the Wilsons:

Columnist Robert Novak said Saturday Ambassador Joe Wilson did not forcefully object to the naming of his CIA operative wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, when Novak spoke to him prior to the publication of a column that sparked a federal investigation and sent White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby to jail.

“He was not terribly exercised about it,” Novak said.

Instead, Wilson focused on not being portrayed as simply an opponent of the Iraq war. Wilson also stressed that his wife went by his last name, Wilson, rather than Plame, Novak said.

Wilson seems to be following the age old Hollywood publicists plea, “Say what you want about me, just make sure you spell my name right.”

Apparently, only when the media and the left began to make a big deal about the “outing” of Valerie Plame Wilson did Ambasador Joe begin to ratchet up the outrage. Once Wilson hopped on the gravy train, his fake anger went from mild to white hot - intimating first that exposing his wife’s position at CIA had ruined her career then building on that theme until Wilson was saying outright that the incident was threatening to her life. The more the left lionized him, the more aggrieved he appeared to get. It was a classic performance matched by his wife’s before the House Oversight Committee where she perjured herself several times trying to explain how her recommendation that the CIA send her husband to Niger came about.

Two seperate Congressional Committees have proven Wilson a liar. Novak is calling Wilson a liar. But the left, the media, and soon Hollywood will lionize Wilson, taking those lies and setting them in stone where only those truly interested in the truth of what happened and bother to examine the entire record will realize what actually occurred.

Novak summed up the difficulty of getting to the truth in this matter:

I was stunned by how little editorial support I received. I was under assault from editorial writers from across the country,” Novak said. “It is startling how little is known about this case by the people who are commenting on it.

Where does the myth end and the truth begin? Even asking that question proves that in the popular mind, the narrative created out of whole cloth by Democrats and the media will dominate and Joe Wilson will probably go to his grave a hero.

Perhaps 50 years from now, history will finally overtake the legend. It happened with the Whittaker Chambers/Alger Hiss story where now most historians believe Chambers’ allegation about Hiss’s spying and his membership in a communist cell. But this is cold comfort to the principals today whose lives have been ruined by a lie and an overzealous prosecutor.

Barack Obama won’t wear a pin on his lapel in the shape of the American flag. Forget what that says about Obama’s feelings of patriotism or love of country. Frankly, I don’t think it says much at all. His explanation - that he wants to show his patriotism through disseminating his “ideas” about our national security is fine with me - as long as it ends there.

But it doesn’t end there. Obama (and the left has been doing this for 30 years) assumes a superior position over those who choose to fly the flag or wear a pin by casting aspersions on their motives for doing so:

“You know, the truth is that right after 9/11, I had a pin,” Obama said. “Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we’re talking about the Iraq War, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security, I decided I won’t wear that pin on my chest.

“Instead,” he said, “I’m going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism.”

“You show your patriotism by how you treat your fellow Americans, especially those who serve. And you show your patriotism by being true to your values and ideals. And that’s what we have to lead with, our values and ideals,” Obama said.

The unspoken message here (actually hinted at by Obama) is that those who actually do wear lapel pins are fake patriots. “True patriotism” or “speaking out” is genuine patriotism while those who indulge themselves in flag waving or flag wearing are charlatans. After all, isn’t patriotism “the last refuge of scoundrels?”

Why is it the de facto position on the left that those who reveal outward manifestations of patriotism are, in fact, hypocrites or worse, fakes? What psychic awareness do they possess that the rest of us don’t, allowing them to glean intent and motive whenever the mood hits them to advance the notion that people who love this country and want to wear or wave the flag are, by definition, phonies?

Don’t tell me that this isn’t the unspoken message being delivered here. It’s the same kind of nonsense as the “chickenhawk” meme where the left assumes a position of moral ascendancy based on scurrilous reasoning and logic.

With the chickenhawk argument, the left’s fake superiority - due, they say to their anti-war sentiments - is easily exposed because their logic in criticizing war supporters is that they have never served. Rather than being precluded from spouting their anti-war sentiments for the exact same reason (after all, if those who haven’t served and are for the war can’t talk about the conflict because they know nothing about it, what do anti-war leftists know about the war not having served themselves that gives them the “special knowledge” to be against it?), the left had to invent the moral framework that they are the exception to the rule of not being able to speak about the war even if they haven’t served because of their superior moral position in being against the war.

In the case of public displays of patriotism, we have similar silliness. In the Obama’s world, the fact that you don’t wear a flag pin shows that you are a superior patriot - that those who indulge in such vulgar displays are as phony as a three dollar bill.

We don’t need any special mirror into the soul of liberals to say this. They convict themselves out of their own mouths so often, the arguments they make have become caricatures of liberal dogma. How often are we reminded that flag waving is “jingoistic? How many references do we get to “John Wayne” or “Rambo” when the left wants to belittle the outward expression of love of country? In fact, you would be hardpressed to come up with any praise by any liberal anywhere in the United States for any kind of show of patriotism at all. Troops being cheered coming home from Iraq? Crickets chirping on the left or worse, complaints about how this encourages “the war spirit.” Military recruiters attacked on campus? Cheer on the attackers. After all, the military is “selling” patriotism.

No chance those recruiters are sincere in their love of country, right? They just want to trap baby boys into going into the service and kill brown people. I don’t recall one single word raised in defense of the recruiters on the left after the numerous incidents where they have been assaulted.

I would say to Obama it is true you can show your love of country by espousing your ideas about our security and safety. But you can’t do it by implying those who choose a more public way to show their affection for America are somehow fakes or phonies. When Obama says that the flag pin was a “substitute for I think true patriotism,” by definition, he is saying that there is a “false patriotism” involved in supporting the Iraq War.

And that’s a pretty stupid thing to say from a guy who wants to be President.

UPDATE

I will respond to John Cole thusly:

You’re a fucking liar.

Mr. Cole:

…in a week or so, some asshole (take your pick- Ace, Michelle, Hugh Hewitt, Rush Limbaugh) will make up some bullshit lie about a Democrat (take your pick- Harry Reid, Obama, Hillary, Nancy Pelosi) in which their (again, take your pick- integrity, honesty, sexuality, patriotism) is questioned or smeared, and Rick will uncritically swallow it, bash them for a few days, and then offer a meek apology a few weeks later.

At some point you start to recognize a pattern in all of this.

What is “all this” John? Which posts? When? What was the topic?

And since you intimate that I do it all the time, I demand you supply multiple links (I believe there may have been one walk back post on something I said about a liberal a day or two following something I wrote. But never “a few weeks” - which is just something you pulled out of your ass without regard for the truth.)

Nor do I give a shit what Ace or Malkin or anyone else comes up with to “smear” the left. I don’t even read Hewitt anymore - haven’t in months. (I can read about Mitt Romney anywhere). Nor have I read Ace much - especially since he and I got into it over Scott Beauchamp. And the fact that I agree with many on the left about what Rush Limbaugh said and what he meant seems to have escaped your notice (although I think Dem pushback has been laughably over the top as has the notion that there is any equivalency whatsoever with the Moveon smear of Petreaus). This gives the lie to your charge that I use anything Rush Limbaugh says as fodder for this blog. It is also a lie to even hint I have ever taken any liberal to task over their sexual preference.

Basically, Cole couldn’t be bothered to find the truth despite the fact it was sitting on his face. In fact, he actually made an effort to remain ignorant. He just pulled crap out of thin air and plastered it on his blog - lazy and stupid.

BTW - I think I make it clear in my post that Obama is as patriotic as anyone else. My beef is not with Obama’s patriotism but with the towering hypocrisy of the left that they grant themselves a superior kind of patriotism” via dissent while smearing those who outwardly manifest their patriotism as fakes or phonies. The day liberals can prove to me that they have psychic gifts that allow them to peer into the souls of men and come away with a judgement regarding their honesty and integrity is the day I stop calling them out for their arrogant sanctimony.

Cole lied about “pattern recognition” and he lied about what I wrote this morning. And the idea that just because I diss the GOP doesn’t mean I can’t come down on liberals like a ton of bricks if I so choose is ridiculous (which I think you were trying to say although coherence is not a hallmark of your writing). The fact is, both parties are full of it. And the destructive ideology driving both bases will probably kill us all in the end.

Fear of those who are different than us - especially those who worship differently than we do - is one of the hallmarks of the truly ignorant. If there was ever an issue in a democracy not to get your panties all in a bunch over it would have to be how someone talks to God; what name they call him, what direction they face when they pray, the funny little hats they wear when speaking to him, or even really, really esoteric differences like whether they believe the Indians are actually the lost tribes of Israel or if someone believes in any of this superstitious nonsense in the first place.

It just doesn’t matter - or it shouldn’t anyway. Of course, in America everything eventually comes down to politics anyway. And while clear majorities of Americans want their president to have definite religious views, even larger majorities don’t want a candidate prattling on and on about them. They support a minister’s right to talk about politics but large majorities do not think religious leaders should be in the business of endorsing candidates. In short, American draw a sharp, distinct line between the private practice of religion and what role it should have in politics; that is, as little as possible.

Except for a large segment of the Republican party, stuck as they are in the 17th century where religious tests for office in England were a matter of routine, the question of where someone comes out on their very own Christian-o-Meter seems to matter a great deal. And the deal is, neither God nor any of the Prophets or disciples or apostles or even Jesus Christ himself defines the issues that determine who is a “good Christian” and who gets piled on for being the devil’s disciple.

The job of deciding what issues make you a good Christian candidate go to people like Pat Robertson or James Dobson or any other highly visible, well heeled TV evangelist who arbitrarily can tell Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, and especially that Mormon apostate Mitt Romney that they are not welcome to sup at the table of the righteous but must beg for scraps and grovel like a dog if they wish any recognition at all.

Now going off as I do here on these “leaders” of the religious right probably has some of the more simpleminded among you believing I am somehow “anti-Christian.” In logic class, we might have simply laughed you out of the room and told you to go home to your mother and come back when you were ready to act and think like an adult. Of course I am not saying anything whatsoever that could be construed as “anti-Christian.” I am however, trying to make a case for kicking the Dobsons, the Robertsons, and their pandering, homophobic, fear mongering clique of insufferably arrogant and self righteous sycophants out of the GOP party hierarchy.

Where they go from there, I could really care less. But to have them determining “litmus test” issues and then actually having the supreme hubris to pass judgement on how well a political candidate adheres to their narrow view of Christian ethics is nothing less than a determination of fealty to one set of religious principles - a “religious test” by any other name.

How many ways is this wrong? How UN-American is this? Evidently, people like Dobson could care less:

I firmly believe that the selection of a president should begin with a recommitment to traditional moral values and beliefs. Those include the sanctity of human life, the institution of marriage, and other inviolable pro-family principles. Only after that determination is made can the acceptability of a nominee be assessed.

The other approach, which I find problematic, is to choose a candidate according to the likelihood of electoral success or failure. Polls don’t measure right and wrong; voting according to the possibility of winning or losing can lead directly to the compromise of one’s principles. In the present political climate, it could result in the abandonment of cherished beliefs that conservative Christians have promoted and defended for decades. Winning the presidential election is vitally important, but not at the expense of what we hold most dear.

Why must it be all or nothing? Practical, reasonable people support the candidate that best reflects their principles but aren’t dogmatic about it. People give different weight to different issues and their judgement about a candidate is reflected in a host of factors - personality, likability, and purely selfish concerns having to do with personal wealth and issues that directly impact the pocketbook.

But all this goes under the bus when Dobson and his crew start waving the bible around and saying people like Fred Thompson are not Christian:

“Everyone knows he’s conservative and has come out strongly for the things that the pro-family movement stands for,” Dobson – considered the most politically powerful evangelical figure in the U.S. – said in a phone call to Dan Gilgoff, senior editor at U.S. News & World Report.

“[But] I don’t think he’s a Christian. At least that’s my impression.”

Dobson then issued a “clarification” that was, if anything, more egregiously intolerant than his original remarks about Thompson:

“In his conversation with Mr. Gilgoff, Dr. Dobson was attempting to highlight that to the best of his knowledge, Sen. Thompson hadn’t clearly communicated his religious faith, and many evangelical Christians might find this a barrier to supporting him.

“Dr. Dobson told Mr. Gilgoff he had never met Sen. Thompson and wasn’t certain that his understanding of the former senator’s religious convictions was accurate. Unfortunately, these qualifiers weren’t reported by Mr. Gilgoff. We were, however, pleased to learn from his spokesperson that Sen. Thompson professes to be a believer.

Is one’s support or opposition to Roe v Wade a “religious conviction?” Are we not content with thrusting God into the political fray but must now bring Him into the Courts as well?

It is just as well. Dobson got his comeuppance from Thompson during an interview with Sean Hannity last night:

Host Sean Hannity asked Thompson about Dobson, who has attacked Thompson and made it clear he would not support a Thompson candidacy. “Don’t read too much into the Dobson thing,” Thompson told Hannity, continuing:

A gentleman who has never met me, who has never talked to me, I’ve never talked to him on the phone. I did have one of his aides call me up and kind of apologize, the first time he attacked me and said I wasn’t a Christian…

I don’t know the gentleman. I do know that I have a lot of people who are of strong faith and are involved in the same organizations that he is in, that I’ve met with, Jeri and I both have met with, and I like to think that we have some strong friendships and support there…

Hannity then asked: “Would you want to have a conversation with Dr. Dobson? Do you think that might help?”

I have no idea. I don’t particularly care to have a conversation with him. If he wants to call up and apologize again, that’s ok with me. But I’m not going to dance to anybody’s tune.

Good for Fred. Unfortunately, in the current GOP party structure, not dancing to Dobson’s tune isn’t likely to get you very far. I may be wrong about him, but Thompson seems to me to be just the sort of person we need as President. When he says that he “won’t dance to anybody’s tune,” you get the impression that goes not only for Dobson but other special interests as well. Coupled with his genuine conservative stands on many issues, he is becoming more and more attractive to me every day, although I wouldn’t commit to him yet.

Contrast Thompson’s rhetoric with that of John McCain. Mired in 4th place in most polls, McCain is evidently trying to “Out-Christian” all the other candidates by opining that first he wouldn’t vote for a Muslim for President unless he could be sure of his loyalty to the United States and then topping that idiocy by saying “no thanks” to Mitt Romney by averring (in all seriousness) that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints may not be a Christian sect:

John McCain’s remarks about America being founded in the Constitution as a Christian nation have opened him up to getting a lot more questions about his religion — and the religions of other candidates.

At a meeting with the Spartanburg Herald-Journal editorial board, McCain was asked whether Mormons are Christians — a serious issue with many evangelicals, and a potential pitfall for Mitt Romney.

“I don’t know. I respect their faith. I’ve never frankly looked at the Mormon religion. I’ve known a lot of Mormons who are wonderful people,” McCain said.

To be fair, McCain went on to say that he didn’t believe Romney’s Mormonism should be held against him. But isn’t that kind of like saying “The fact that my opponent has molested children in the past should have no bearing on this race…?” Magnanimous but a little hypocritical at the same time.

Where all this religiosity in the GOP is leading is as plain as the nose on your face; total, unmitigated defeat. A rout. A bloodbath. Republicans are not going to get 18 million evangelical Christians out to vote for any of the current top tier candidates for President. That’s the number that voted for George Bush in 2004 and arguably supplied his margin of victory over John Kerry. And the difference between 2004 and 2008 is that there will be a sizable chunk of voters who leave the GOP because of this pandering to the religious right and their extremist, narrow, moralistic, issues.

So not only will Republicans see a reduced evangelical vote but if you couple that with people who have abandoned the party in disgust for one reason or another, you have the makings of a truly historic defeat for the GOP.

But don’t worry. If such a defeat were to happen, the Dobsons and their apologists would simply chalk it up to not nominating a candidate who was “pure” enough on those vital issues of gay marriage or some other cultural issue that most Americans place far down their list of priorities. So they will continue to fool themselves into thinking that it doesn’t matter that nobody cares about their issues as long as they are “true to principle.”

Tough to stand on principle when you’re stuck in the political hinterlands and nobody is listening to you.

UPDATE: RIGHT ON CUE

The GOP must have known I was going to highlight their slavish devotion to their evangelical base today.

Nearly 20% of the Republican caucus voted “present” on a resolution commending the country’s attention to the Muslim holiday of Ramadan:

The resolution recognized “the Islamic faith as one of the great religions of the world,” rejected “hatred, bigotry and violence directed against Muslims, both in the United States and worldwide” and “[commended] Muslims in the United States and across the globe who have privately and publicly rejected interpretations and movements of Islam that justify and encourage hatred, violence and terror.”

Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) dismissed the resolution as political correctness gone too far.

“This resolution is an example of the degree to which political correctness has captured the political and media elite in this country,” Tancredo said. “I am not opposed to commending any religion for their faith. The problem is that any attempt to do so for Jews or Christians is immediately condemned as ‘breaching’ the non-existent line between church and state by the same elite.”

Of course, the fact that voting for this resolution would have made many of your evangelical supporters upset didn’t have a thing to do with it, eh Tom? Can’t refer to Islam as “one of the world’s great religions” without raising worries that before you know it, there will be a Koran in every Congressman’s office.

UPDATE II

Allah has a some prescient thoughts on Dobson and Rudy:

While he was writing this, the archbishop of St. Louis, Raymond Burke, was telling the hometown paper that he’d deny communion to Rudy over his pro-choice stand, a logical extension of the rumblings from the Vatican earlier this year about Catholic politicians whose wall between church and state is a little too high. Burke is no face in the crowd. According to the Post-Dispatch, he’s respected as one of the Church’s most brilliant legal minds and apparently authored a paper last year arguing that if a wayward Catholic politician had been formally warned not to receive communion, it would be a mortal sin for any priest or eucharistic minister to give it to them.

The more the religious establishment lines up against him, the more Rudy becomes the protest choice for conservatives who think the religious right has too much sway over the party. I’ve got to admit, for all the grief I give him, I’m starting to lean towards Rudy myself.

I have numerous other problems with Rudy but his stand on social issues isn’t part of them. What I’ve read from many who have served with him makes me think that a Rudy White House would be a very interesting place indeed. He’s a man who engenders loyalty but also fear - something I’m not sure is a good thing in a president. And then there’s the experience factor. Do we really want to hand the modern presidency off to a man whose highest office achieved was Mayor of a big city?

I don’t know which is why I’m so up in the air about who to support.

Let’s take a look at some news headlines today, shall we?

The bully boys in Myanmar are still cracking down on the pro-reform movement. In Yangon, the largest city of what used to be known as Burma, soldiers in jeeps are patrolling the streets, shouting into a loudspeaker that they “have pictures” from the demonstrations and are making arrests. Diplomats report that people are disappearing in the middle of the night.

Meanwhile, 41 Democratic Senators signed a letter to Mark Mays, Chairman of Clear Channel railing against Limbaugh’s smearing of anti-war military people, calling on him to ” publicly repudiate these comments that call into question their service and sacrifice and to ask Mr. Limbaugh to apologize for his comments.”

To his eternal credit, Mays blew them off by bringing up the free speech issue:

“Mr. Limbaugh’s comments have stirred a lot of emotion, and I have carefully read the transcript in question,” Mays wrote. “Given Mr. Limbaugh’s history of support for our soldiers, it would be unfair for me to assume his statements were intended to personally indict combat soldiers simply because they didn’t share his own beliefs regarding the war in Iraq.

“I hope that you understand and support my position that while I certainly do not agree with all the views that are voiced on our stations, I will not condemn our talent for exercising their right to voice them,”

Mays and I differ on what Limbaugh said and what he meant. But asking the chief executive of a broadcast network to “publicly repudiate” the comments and force Limbaugh to apologize? (They might have added “or else.)

Because hanging over any such missive from our lawmakers is a threat - implied or not - that if the broadcaster doesn’t do what they demand, untold and unmentioned problems might befall the company.

It is bullying, pure and simple. The Democrats tried the same crap with Walt Disney Corporation when ABC aired “The Path to 9/11″ last year. Disney backed down by feverishly editing the mini-series right up to showtime in order to kowtow to the wishes of our free speech loving Democratic lawmakers and take out anything that could be construed as showing Saint Bill in a negative light.

Now I ask you: Thousands are dead in Myanmar with many thousands more locked up or being rounded up as I write this and the Democrats are condemning…RUSH LIMBAUGH!

If they put forth one tenth the effort to condemn the military junta massacring their own people, they’d be doing their jobs. Instead, they are wasting time on this idiotic quest to get back at conservatives for the firestorm of condemnation that rained down up on the heads of the smear merchants at Moveon.org.

Truly pathetic little children.

And while we’re on the subject of free speech…

AT&T has rolled out new Terms of Service for its DSL service that leave plenty of room for interpretation. From our reading of it, in concert with several others, what we see is a ToS that attempts to give AT&T the right to disconnect its own customers who criticize the company on blogs or in other online settings.

Something is not quite right with this picture. A giant corporation threatens to curtail the free speech rights of its customers and the Democrats are worried about something some clown of an entertainer said on a radio talk show?

How about getting up on the floor and asking if the Chairman of AT&T is on drugs, Tom Harkin? How about getting 41 Senators to sign a letter to the giant Telcom demanding a retraction and clarification? How about Harry Reid shutting the hell up about Rush and standing up for free speech?

No can do, eh? Too busy running around the Senate floor screaming at the top of your voices NEENER! NEENER! NEENER! with your fingers plugging up your ears.

And if you’re in the mood to pass resolutions, how about one congratulating the President?

North Korea will provide a complete list of its nuclear programs and disable its facilities at its main reactor complex by Dec. 31, actions that will be overseen by a U.S.-led team, the six nations involved in disarmament talks said Wednesday.

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei said that as part of the agreement, Washington will lead an expert group to Pyongyang “within the next two weeks to prepare for disablement” and will fund those initial activities.

“The disablement of the five megawatt experimental reactor at Yongbyon, the reprocessing plant at Yongbyon and the nuclear fuel rod fabrication facility at Yongbyon will be completed by 31 December 2007,” said Wu, who read the statement from the six nations to reporters, but did not take any questions.

Of course, in order to pass such a resolution of congratulations, liberals have to figure out whether this is the week they are skewering the Administration for “going it alone” or blaming Bush for “too much reliance on negotiating partners.”

I realize it’s difficult to keep track of such diametric opposite positions so why not just give some floor speeches hailing the good news?

But noooooo. This week, floor speeches are devoted to acting like 10 year olds and trying to make people believe you give a fig about the troops. People who care about our soldiers don’t go around calling them “terrorists” (John Kerry), “Nazis” (Dick Durbin), or “murderers” (John Murtha).

And what was the leader of the Senate - an anti-war lawmaker through and through - thinking when he said this in response to Limbaugh’s smear?

But on the Senate floor Monday, Reid accused Limbaugh of attacking “those fighting and dying for him and for all of us. Rush Limbaugh got himself a deferment from serving when he was a young man. He never served in uniform. He never saw in person the extreme difficulty of maintaining peace in a foreign country engaged in a civil war. He never saw a person in combat. Yet, that he thinks his opinion on the war is worth more than those who have been on the front lines,” Reid said.

“Rush Limbaugh owes the men and women of our armed forces an apology,” he said.

Just as an aside, if our soldiers are “fighting and dying for him and for all of us” that must mean that Reid believes our mission in Iraq is worthwhile. After all, if it wasn’t worthwhile, if it was a waste, the soldiers there would be fighting and dying for nothing, right? And if it’s worthwhile, why the all fired hurry to leave?

Just asking…

With all these things happening in the world that the Senate should be paying attention to and dealing with, they are taking an enormous amount of time and energy to go after Limbaugh. Not because what he said was “unpatriotic” or proves that Limbaugh “hates the troops” - both laughable, fake constructs that only a liberal would believe anyone else thinks is true. The reason the Democrats are doing this is revenge, pure and simple. And with a world and a nation full of problems, we should demand better of our lawmakers than acting like bratty kids.

This is starting to get fun. Watching Congressional liberals like Tom Harkin skewer Rush Limbaugh for his “phony soldiers” smear of anti-war troops is a bit like watching Leonardo DiCaprio do Shakespeare; it’s so horrifically bad you just want to sit back and enjoy the actor making an absolute fool of himself.

Of course, Rush should have apologized days ago. If he had, the whole thing would probably have blown over or at least not become the cause celebre of the blogosphere that has seen those on the right falling all over themselves trying to defend the indefensible and those on the left - still smarting from the Moveon.org “Betray-us” ad fiasco that played a huge part in blunting the anti-war pack in Congress from succeeding in destroying Petraeus’s credibility - trying to convince everyone that Rush Limbaugh is an anti-military, unpatriotic, drug addict.

Frank Martin explains the stupidity of the Democrat’s weird attack:

What was once said about “not starting an argument with someone who buys ink by the barrel” can also be said about someone who’s voice can be found in every populated area of the western hemisphere for at least 3 straight hours every day.

3 hours a day, 5 days a week, repeated on Saturday and Sunday, with newsletter and website and podcast for a low,low monthly subscription. Democrats seem to have collectively decided in their “moment of triumph” with a whopping 24% approval rating to wander into the idealogical bull ring, not dressed as a matador, but wearing a red union suit, clown shoes and a big red nose, and then bend over while facing the other way and waving at the kids in the front row of the stands.

Right in the path of the charging enraged bull.

Indeed, put that way, Rush really didn’t need to back down and apologize although it would have been the decent thing to do. I know many of you disagree but the fact is, in order to believe Rush’s version of his thought processes, you have to believe he hasn’t spent the last decade and a half lumping people who disagree with him together and tarring them as “unpatriotic” or “un-American.” This is Rush’s shtick and to deny that he has made a career out of doing it is to deny him the air he breathes.

But the liberal reaction to Limbaugh’s smear has been outrageous by any standards. Rush left them an opening they haven’t had in years - to turn the tables on their number one talk radio tormentor and use the exact same calumnious language to hit back. It really does remind me of a ten year old boy on the playground, sticking his tongue out at a bully while saying “So there.”

And in the background of all this is the devout wish of Media Matters and the anti-war left to lash out blindly following what I called at the time “the dumbest, the most spectacularly ignorant political maneuver in modern history.” The Moveon ad not only let Petraeus off the hook politically. It tempered the criticism of Congressional questioners and in the end, actually engineered momentum for the pro-surge crowd.

As recently as week before the ad appeared, most political observers believed that all the momentum was on the anti-war side despite the smattering of good news from Iraq. The ad took the wind out of the sails of the anti-war side, causing their Hill allies to scramble for cover behind a resolution condemning the attack.

The ad backfired so egregiously, damaging the credibility of the New York Times in the process because of the newspaper’s generous discount to Moveon, that it generated sympathy for Petraeus across the country and bolstered his credibility. In fact, the ad did exactly the opposite of what it was originally intended to do; a spectacular failure in the annals of American politics.

These facts have the anti-war crowd all in a lather and seeking to lash out at the first target of opportunity that presented itself. First, they tried a curious smear of the President for his “all the Mandelas are dead” comment - a childish ploy that any 5 year old could see through.

Then it was Bill O’Reilly’s turn to be smeared regarding some “racist” comments he made about going to Harlem. That attempt at revenge fell through when Juan Williams came out and set the record straight. In the world of liberal pandering, the authentic voice of “the other” cannot be challenged. Strike two on the left.

Finally came Limbaugh’s generosity in presenting the anti-war crew with what they believed was a gift horse; the perfect vehicle to get back at their long time nemesis. Except the way they went about it was incredibly stupid.

First of all, what cloakroom genius put Senator Tom Harkin, a man forced to admit that he lied through his teeth about his own military service, out front on this issue? It’s just incomprehensible that the liberals could be that stupid. The only possible explanation is that, like Ted Kennedy’s driving problems and Barney Frank’s male out call caper, Harkin’s admission was so long ago that they figured everyone has forgotten about it.

To top it off, Harkin pandered shamelessly to the vulgarity of the “compassionate” netnuts by bringing up Limbaugh’s battle to overcome addiction:

Well, I don’t know. Maybe he was just high on his drugs again. I don’t know whether he was or not. If so, he ought to let us know. But that shouldn’t be an excuse.

The satisfaction with Harkin on the left after he made that comment was so palpable - and shocking - that you could almost see them rubbing their hands together in glee as one. It never ceases to amaze me that the liberals can continue to brag about how compassionate they are compared to conservatives while throwing out the nastiest, most personal, most vile invective this side of a Britt/K-Fed exchange of emails.

Malkin hits the nail on the head here (although I disagree with her take on the incident in general):

Here is what this phony fiasco is really all about: It’s about the MoveOn.org Democrats trying to save face in the aftermath of the disastrous “General Betray Us” smear. They want their own moment of righteous (or rather, lefteous) indignation, their own empty proof that they really, really, really do support the troops. They want to shift attention away from MoveOn.org, its bully tactics, and its thug brethren at Media Matters. They are making a pathetic attempt to equate the “Betray Us” attack–which was deliberately timed for publication and maximum p.r. damage to our military command when the world was watching our top general in Iraq testifying in Congress–with a radio talk show host’s ruminations about anti-war soldiers who have faked their military records/history.

Bottom-of-the-barrel desperation.

Face it my lefty friends, the Democrats have botched this attack big time. In fact, a move by GOP House members to actually introduce a resolution praising Limbaugh is gaining steam along with Representative Udall’s resolution condemning him. This thing is going to backfire in the Dems faces as once again, liberal lawmakers will be seen as little more than tools carrying water for the far left on the internet.

Only in America.

UPDATE: FROM OUR “MOUTH AGAPE WITH ASTONISHMENT” FILES

I know there is something pithy, snarky, amusing, or just downright nasty I could say about The New Republic weighing in on the Rush Limbaugh matter. Frankly, anything I could add would be superfulous. There is no level of irony that I can think of in literature or life that matches this kind of total obliviousness to self-parody:

I can’t help but find it incredibly karmically satisfying that Rush Limbaugh is getting spoon-fed a little bit of the same bitter medicine Democrats swallowed when MoveOn dared to call someone wearing a military uniform less than honest. Now, what Rush did was worse — he called the many Iraq war veterans who consult with antiwar Democrats “phony troops” — and the outcry against him is less wild: Some press releases, a little play on CNN, and today Harry Reid went on the Senate floor to denounce him, which probably only makes Rush more popular with his listeners. Still, good for Reid. In these difficult days we find our scraps of pleasure where we can.

Bryan at Hot Air tries gamely to rise to this stupendous occasion of monumentally epic hypocrisy:

The phony soldiers fall into three categories: Those who claim to serve but never did; those who claim personal knowledge of US atrocities that never happened and who turn out to have inflated their own service records, if they served at all; and those who use their own military service records either to smear the military themselves or to vouch for others who smear the military and turn out to be liars. TNR’s own Scott Thomas Beauchamp falls into the latter category. TNR’s Eve Fairbanks is not only evidently unaware of how dangerous it is for someone writing for TNR to weigh in on this subject — blowback, indeed — but she’s unaware and probably willfully so that the entire accusation against Rush is false to its roots.

How’s that final report on Beauchamp going, Mr. Foer?

For once, that trite, overused bloggism cliche “You just can’t make this stuff up” is actually one of the more profound things I can write about this.

UPDATE FROM MY ORIGINAL POST BELOW

I see where some on the right disagree with my take on Limbaugh’s comment. Some suggested I watch the video where Rush explains his meaning in the context of bringing up phony soldier Jesse Macbeth.

I watched the video and am more convinced than ever that Limbaugh knew he had goofed when he said “phony soldiers” (plural) and in the context of the moment the comment was made, Limbaugh was clearly referencing and agreeing with the caller’s sentiment that all soldiers who come forward and make known their opposition to the war are not “real soldiers” (caller’s words).

We can parse this thing from here to doomsday and not agree because at bottom, we are arguing about Limbaugh’s intent - an admittedly doomed excursion into the realm of mind reading.

Thankfully, Rush rescued me by going even further on his show yesterday. Not only did he include Jesse Macbeth and Scott Beauchamp in his “phony soldier” meme, he also included Jack Murtha in that notorious group for the Congressman’s execrable comments condemning the Haditha Marines before the official report on the incident had even been released.

Why is Murtha’s military career - a career that all can agree was distinguished and honorable - at issue as a result of his statements about Haditha? How can you refer to Murtha as a “phony soldier” when those comments were made long after he left the military?

Call him a “phony politician” if you wish. But Murtha’s service was genuine. Would Limbaugh refer to virulent anti-war Senator Daniel Inouye as a “phony soldier” based on what the Senator has said about our involvement in Iraq? Inouye, a genuine war hero who fought for this country while Japanese Americans were languishing in detention camps, lost an arm in combat and was awarded the Medal of Honor.

Murtha is a pandering, corrupt lout of a Congressman - a man who should be kicked out of Congress for stinking up the institution with sweetheart deals and earmarks targeted to his family and cronies. His taking the lead in trying to outdo his Democratic colleagues in opposition to the war was almost certainly at least partly animated by his desire to attain a leadership position following the 2006 elections. I have nothing but contempt for him today, although in the past I admired his political courage as he went against his party in the 1980’s to support the Reagan defense buildup.

But Limbaugh’s inclusion of Murtha in his little gang of “phony soldiers” is telling. If the talk show host was only talking about “phony soldiers” why include someone whose only sin appears to be opposition to the war in Iraq - an opposition that led the Congressman to jump the gun on the Pentagon and condemn Marines - some of them entirely innocent - for the Haditha incident?

Limbaugh’s explanation just doesn’t hold water. It is entirely plausible that the polarizing Mr. Limbaugh issued a blanket condemnation of military people who are opposed to the war rather than singling out individuals like Jesse Macbeth when he uttered the words “phony soldiers.”

I admit that gleaning intent is tricky. But which is more plausible? Limbaugh lumping people who disagree with him into one, overarching, insulting rubric or Rush carefully delineating between some soldiers who oppose the war and the Jesse Macbeths of the world?

Given Limbaugh’s clear and well documented past, I think it is logical to assume the former.

First of all, I would say to my lefty friends that anyone who tries to draw some kind of equivalence with Rush Limbaugh referring to anti-war military people as “phony soldiers” and Moveon’s “Betray-us” ad is an idiot.

There is no comparison between the two. None. To make a comparison, is to stretch the point to breaking - a sure sign that any equivalence is manufactured out of whole cloth.

Having said that, Limbaugh is a goose for saying it. And he owes an apology not just to anti-war military people (and ex-military) but to the entirety of the United States Armed Forces.

Here is the context in which Limbaugh made his scurrilous remark:

CALLER: I have a retort to Mike in Chicago, because I am serving in the American military, in the Army. I’ve been serving for 14 years, very proudly.

CALLER: Phony soldiers. If you talk to any real soldier and they’re proud to serve, they want to be over in Iraq, they understand their sacrifice and they’re willing to sacrifice for the country.

This is why I don’t buy Brian Faughnan’s “explanation” in The Weekly Standard blog:

Limbaugh’s offhand comment was poorly chosen. It’s clear that there are ‘real soldiers’–real by anyone’s criteria–who oppose the war in Iraq and they’re entitled to their views. But much like the recently manufactured controversies over Bill O’Reilly’s comments, and President Bush’s comment about Saddam having killed “all the Mandelas,” the left is trying to pull a fast-one by taking Rush’s statement out of context.

It’s also clear and undeniable that the political left has eagerly stood behind fakers who spout tales about Iraq that are at times false, or ridiculous, or both. From Jesse MacBeth to Scott Thomas Beauchamp, liberals and anti-war moonbats have suspended logic and reason to embrace people because they liked what they had to say, regardless of whether the tales made sense, or their credentials were as they claimed.

This is, quite simply, changing the subject in order to place the onus of the comment on the other side - an intellectually dishonest tactic. Of course the left has manufactured controversies recently. The Bush-Mandela incident was a jaw dropping example of pure idiocy - a two year old knew what Bush was saying in that context.

But Limbaugh’s utterance was truly despicable. And no amount of spinning can shake the fact that on its own merits, without reference to anything Moveon or any other lefty group has done to slime the troops (Code Pink razzing wounded soldiers out in front of Walter Reed, anyone?), the slur should make not just anti-war soldiers angry but all of our military upset. Limbaugh, quite simply, has intruded. And he should butt out. If one soldier wants to call out another for being “phony,” that’s one thing. But Limbaugh is an outsider and has no business sliming people for beliefs that are just as heartfelt as those who believe in the mission.

Now, no one who is serious and sane believes that Rush Limbaugh hates the troops. And because he does so obviously care about them, he must publicly apologize on the air for his remark. And, as I mentioned, he should apologize to the entire US Military. These last four years have been tough on these guys - tougher than on any other group of American soldiers since World War II. And despite claims to the contrary on the left, the military doesn’t train automatons. The secret to American success on the battlefield has always been the ability of our people to think independently, to act decisively, to take advantage of opportunities that present themselves. Non thinking robots cannot function in our military.

And because of that, you are going to have your fair share of people who disagree with public policy or see things differently than the majority. These men and women serve just as honorably. They perform just as courageously. And they are just as patriotic as any other soldier who serves. To denigrate their service cheapens their right as Americans to disagree.

So Rush, we’re waiting for that apology. And I hope I’m joined by many on the right in calling for Limbaugh to own up to his mistake and do the right thing by our military.

UPDATE

I’m not really surprised that out of all the center right blogs who have covered this incident, only James Joyner and Michael van der Galiën come anywhere near my position. Ed Morrissey gives Limbaugh points for his “clarifying remarks” that were made after the segment was long over where he says that he was really talking about the Jesse MacBeths and Scott Beauchamps of the world and not anti-war soldiers in general.

Sorry, but I’m not buying that for the simple reason that Limbaugh was agreeing with a caller who was, in fact, lumping all anti-war soldiers together, in turn agreeing with Limbaugh’s designation of them as “phony soldiers.” If he wanted to clarify his point he could have done so immediately.

I think what happened is that Limbaugh realized the hot water he was in and tried to backtrack later. He wouldn’t be the first radio host who tried the tactic and he won’t be the last.

Of course I agree that Media Matters blew this thing way out proportion and tried to massage the remarks into an example of equivalency with the Petreaus Moveon ad. As I mentioned, there is zero equivalence between the two. None. Zilch. The remark is bad enough standing on its own. We don’t need some kind of childish “gotchya” game that the left never tires of playing in order to see what needs to be done; Limbaugh apologizing.

This article originally appears in The American Thinker

Judging by the answers given by Democratic presidential candidates last night to the question of whether there will still be troops in Iraq in 2013 following the first term of a Democratic president, it seems certain that the mission will continue in one form or another Bush or no Bush.

The enormity of the military conflict in Iraq was spelled out in the simplest of all admissions tonight:

Among all of the leading Democratic candidates for president, none was willing to commit to a promise in a campaign debate that all of the U.S. combat forces deployed in Iraq will be gone by 2013, the end of the next president’s term in office.

“It’s hard to project four years from now,” said Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, at the start of a debate of the Democratic candidates in Hanover, N.H.

“”It is very difficult to know what we’re going to be inheriting,” said Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who has vowed that if President Bush has not ended the war in Iraq by the time the next president takes office, “I will.’’

“”I cannot make that commitment,” said former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, answering the question posed in a televised debate in the state that will hold the first of the presidential primary elections in January.

A.B. Stoddard writing for The Hill’s Pundit’s Blog sums up the Dem dilemma nicely:

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Sen. Chris Dodd (Conn.) made the promise Clinton, Edwards and Obama — with all their nuance — could not: to pull out all troops in his first term as president. But we know not what “counterterrorism activities” will consist of in six months, let alone six years. How do we define what is a continuation of this war? We simply cannot know what sectarian violence, al Qaeda-perpetrated violence or other Iranian-influenced violence will be consuming Iraq at that point, so none of the likely Democratic nominees can say for certain — not Clinton, not Obama, not Edwards — that they would have ended our war in Iraq by 2013.

I am not saying I disagree with anything Obama, Clinton and Edwards are saying. It’s just been a bit tiring to hear them beat that “end the war” drum all across the country when even they don’t know what that means.

When pressed to the wall, the Democratic candidates demonstrated that despite all the tough talk about withdrawing from Iraq, they are as much a hostage to events there as the President. Like the Republicans, they are well and truly stuck with Bush’s policies, the Maliki government, al-Sadr’s plotting, and the rest of the crummy situation that will continue to exist for the foreseeable future in Iraq.

There is no going back or getting out quickly. And the Democratic candidates, at the risk of riling up their rabid, anti-war base (and recognizing the facts of life on Iraq all along despite rhetoric to the contrary) are responsible enough and practical enough to see that there is no briar patch nearby where this tar baby can be shed.

The frustration of the base with the Democratic performance in Congress on the war is now boiling over. This piece in Politico today gives voice to many who simply can’t understand the reluctance of Democrats to take on a wildly unpopular President and a very unpopular war:

But it’s a simple truth, whether you support the war or not: There is a lot more Democrats could do to change, or at least challenge, the politics of the war in Washington, even if they do not have the numbers to impose new policies on President Bush.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) could force a vote a day over Iraq. She could keep the House in session all night, over weekends and through planned vacations.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) could let filibusters run from now till Christmas rather than yield to pro-war Republicans.

Such tactics might or might not be politically sensible, but in their absence, anti-war lawmakers can hardly say they have done everything possible to challenge the war and bring attention to their cause.

This is the voice of frustration, not rationality. For all the Democrats bluster about ending the war and bringing the troops home, there is a very good practical political reason why holding their colleague’s feet to the fire simply won’t work; the public’s own ambivilence about how they view the war and how they want it to end.

The latest Gallup Poll on Iraq shows about what you’d expect: By a large plurality the people think we should establish a timetable to bring the troops home. A large majority believes that Bush has made a hash of the war and that things are not going well - although the number of Americans now believing that the United States will accomplish its goals in Iraq in the long run has been inching up since early in the year to where it is now at 35%,.

But the real ambivalence of the public shows up in the numbers regarding troop reduction and the timetable for withdrawal. Only 18% want the troops to come home immediately, the de facto position of the netroots and Moveon.Org while 38% want the troops to stay “until the situation gets better.” A plurality (41%) wish to see a timetable for gradual withdrawal - which now mirrors the Bush-Petreaus goal of removing troops slowly although the poll indicates a plurality wishing to see this occur over the course of a year’s time.

What about Petreaus’s plan for pulling troops out of Iraq? Again, a plurality is with the President with 43% believing the number proposed by Petreaus is the “Right Amount” while 36% feel that too few troops are being withdrawn.

I thought that Gallup’s summary of this poll was particularly apt:

The war is an extremely high-priority issue for Americans and is likely to be one of the top issues in next year’s election. Americans are divided on the war, along partisan lines, but on most measures a majority say that the war was a mistake and not worth the costs. Despite sentiment that the war is not going well for the United States, only about one in five favors an immediate withdrawal of troops. Most do support a gradual withdrawal of troops, preferably within a year, and a majority supports a congressionally mandated timetable.

What the poll doesn’t show but what Democratic politicians have always known is that the “timetable” for withdrawal has been a sham from the beginning. A close look at most of the timetable plans would show a long list of caveats and exceptions that would allow Petreaus or Bush to toss the timetable in the garbage in the event that the situation in Iraq didn’t warrant the troop reductions.

This, of course, was the plan all along; trap the President into making it appear that the Democrats wanted to end the war while Republicans were for continuing it. This is the true significance of the admissions made by the top Democratic candidates on Wednesday night. In the event a timetable was imposed on them, they too would be forced to deal with the situation as it is on the ground in Iraq rather than give in to the wishes of their base and bring the troops home without regard to the interests of Iraq or the United States.

It is not too early to say that unless there are truly dramatic changes in Iraq by election day, the war will be an albatross around the neck of GOP incumbents, likely to drag many of them down to defeat in November, 2008. But for the Democratic candidate for President whoever he or she will be, that will be cold comfort if, after winning the election, they are forced to stand in President Bush’s shoes and deal with the situation in Iraq as it is and not as their anti-war base wishes it would be.