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?

Democratic Sleepwalking in Washington

Now that the month of decision about Iraq has come and gone in a Petraeus-MoveOn cloud of dust, the United States government starts October in a worse stupor than ever.

Democrats who took over Congress in a fever to stop the old war and expose Bush-Cheney lawlessness have just opened the door to a new war and, after months of bloviating about Administration scandals, have only the sorry scalp of Alberto Gonzales to show for their efforts.

The Presidential front runners are still wagging fingers at George Bush without promising to be out of Iraq by 2013 while the frontmost runner of all, the new, improved Hillary Clinton of 2007, casts a vote for Kyl/Lieberman aggression against Iran that looks very much like the one for invading Iraq in 2002.

Only a party elder and a Senate newcomer are awake enough to sound an alarm. As Mario Cuomo reminds Congress of its Constitutional power and responsibility, freshman Senator Jim Webb speaks up about last week’s move against Iran:

“This proposal is Dick Cheney’s fondest pipe dream. It’s not a prescription for success. At best, it’s a deliberate attempt to divert attention from a failed diplomatic policy. At worst, it could be read as a back door method of gaining Congressional validation for action without one hearing or without serious debate.”

Whatever Bush and Cheney have put into the Washington water supply, it has most Democrats pushing the snooze button on their 2008 alarm clocks. They may wake up with the worst political hangover ever.

Giuliani's Glass House

As he hears Fred Thompson’s footsteps in the Republican race, America’s Mayor has gone from polishing his 9/11 halo to photo-shopping it out of all recognition, the Washington Post reports today.

At the same time, Rudy Giuliani has reverted to his prosecutorial roots by impugning the judgment and motives of every Democrat in sight from MoveOn.org back to Bill Clinton.

On terrorism, he charges, Democrats have "the same bad judgment they had in the 1990s. They don't see the threat. They don't accept the threat."

But, the Post reports, the attacks are “undercut by Giuliani's record as mayor and by his public statements about terrorism since the 1990s, which document an evolution in thinking that began with a mind-set similar to the one he criticizes today.”

Before 9/11 and even in the aftermath, Giuliani treated terrorism more as crime, akin to his Mafia experience, rather than an ongoing political crisis, reflected in his decision to locate a command center for the Office of Emergency Management across from the twin towers, which had been attacked in 1993.

John McCain has politely questioned whether Giuliani’s performance after 9/11 "translates, necessarily, into foreign policy or national security expertise. I know of nothing in his background that indicates that he has any experience in it."

The Mayor’s level of interest in international affairs was reflected by his failure to attend meetings of the Iraq Study Group in 2006 that would have interfered with his schedule of collecting $1.4 million in speaking fees, which led to his ultimate resignation from the commission.

Now Giuliani is not only touting his toughness on terrorism and the world it has created but the softness of everybody else. John McCain may be wrong about Iraq and its context, but he knows what he’s talking about, talks straight and doesn’t demean those who disagree with him.

Giuliani is his polar opposite.

American Traditions: Bush's Second Strike

In the second half of the twentieth century, Republicans expressed fears that core American values could be subverted by a foreign ideology. They were right.

After years of tearing down the separation between church and state, George W. Bush is now politicizing the military to a point that should impress his allies, Pervez Musharraf and Nouri al-Maliki.

Tomorrow, as General David Petraeus testifies before Congress, the antiwar group MoveOn.org will run a full-page advertisement in the New York Times under the headline: "General Petraeus or General Betray us? Cooking the books for the White House."

The Standard calls this “disgusting,” and such Generals as Washington and Eisenhower who became Presidents would likely agree.

Washington spoke about “an insidious foe...plotting the ruin of both, by sowing the seeds of discord and separation between the civil and military powers of the continent.”

In his farewell address, Eisenhower famously warned against “the disastrous rise of misplaced power” by the military-industrial complex, “Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of...defense with our peaceful methods and goals.”

Now Bush is breaking down the barriers between military and civilian by attempting to use Petraeus and “the generals” who agree with him, after replacing those who don’t, as a battering ram against Congress to keep them from challenging and changing his disastrous policies.

The invective of the ad against Petraeus is misplaced. He is doing his job in the way that the Commander-in-Chief has defined it. It’s that definition that is now not only causing ruin in Iraq but subverting the Constitution.