Neo-Con Sacrifices for Their Country

This is about as ad hominem as it gets, but in today's New York Times, William Kristol is huffing about a MoveOn ad that "boldly embraces a vision of a selfish and infantilized America, suggesting that military service and sacrifice are unnecessary and deplorable relics of the past. And the sole responsibility of others."

He finds the commercial featuring a mother refusing to make her baby available for John McCain's hundred-year Iraq war "unapologetic in its selfishness, and barely disguised in its disdain for those who have chosen to serve."

Such posturing is particularly galling from a charter member of the Neo-Cons who, when other people's sons were dying in Vietnam, were too busy getting into post-Harvard politics, as Kristol was, or hiding out by pulling family National Guard strings a la George W Bush or getting multiple deferments, as Dick Cheney did, or otherwise choosing not to serve, as only the most fire-breathing of them all, John Bolton, has had the honesty to admit.

"I confess I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy," Bolton wrote in the 25th reunion book of his graduation from Yale about his decision to join the National Guard and go to law school.

Talking about service, Kristol's one-year stint with the Times expires in January just before the Bush Administration does. Haven't they all sacrificed for their country long enough?