I find it ironic that Rove’s Republicans are accusing Democrats of cowardice when the behavior I see among many conservatives, which stinks of cowardice.
I am referring of course to the way so many Republicans fearmonger, and in doing so show every evidence of having caved in to fear themselves.
The most notable examples of this are Dennis Miller and James Lileks, both of whom took a big turn to the right after 9/11. Their response to 9/11 was to say, “Oh, save me big military men! Save me President Bush! Do whatever you like, take away any rights of mine and other Americans you like, just keep those big nasty Moors away from our doors! Let me stay here safe with my parties and my matchbook collections and my postcards of old motels while you big, strong soldiers take care of that horrible threat that scares me so much I can’t even think – and it should scare YOU so much you can’t even think, too, if you’re a real Amurrican.”
Courage was once defined as “grace under pressure” and that’s exactly what conservatives HAVEN’T shown since 9/11. The courageous way to respond to an attack like 9/11 is to calmly and logically asess the origin and nature of the threat posed by the attack, and come up with a rational response to it. Where is Al-Qaeda headquartered? What nations support them? How can we prevent them from doing stuff of this nature again, up to and including invading their asses? That sort of question.
Now, when you pay attention and ask that sort of question, you come up with answers like “Afghanistan is run by the Taliban which is basically Al-Qaeda, the Government, they’ve got training bases for terrorists all over the place and it’s basically Al-Qaeda Central. It would be good to change things over there, alrighty.”
Now, that was clean thinking. Afghanistan is definitely better off with the Taliban banished to the remote provinces where not even the US Army dares to tread. It was a wise use of military force, not panic-spew.
Then we have “Iraq, although it has no known ties to Al-Qaeda, and doesn’t pose any real threat to anybody since we crushed their Army, might someday soon have dangerous weapons and be very scary and so let’s invade now!”
That’s not thinking. That’s not grace under pressure. That’s panic spew, and every American who gave into it ought to be ashamed at being part of a revolting display of national cowardice. (OK, Bush lied his ass off about Iraq and made it appear much more dangerous than it is, but still, even back before the invasion, the evidence was there all along for anyone who cared to look.)
But cowardly conservatives like Lileks and Miller didn’t care to look. They didn’t wanna know. “Oh, protect us, do ANYTHING you want, brave military men!” they said. “Torture innocent people! Detain them illegal without trial! Wiretap them! Wiretap us! Don’t worry about piddly things like warrants! Protect us from the bad men!”
And since then, the constant praising of the military, the cries to support our brave troops and to support the decisions of the Administration no matter how transparently they’re the deranged products of brain-damaged scumbags scheming to loot both the US and Iraq, have had a really pathetic, disgusting, syncophatic quality to it, like a hysterical old woman fawning over a pretty boy.
So when Karl Rove and his fellow travelers call the Dems cowards with phrases like “Cut and run” I got nothing but contempt for them. I thought nothing could further deepen the revulsion I feel for them. Well, I was wrong. Calling anyone else a coward … are they THAT fucking self-deluded? Yes, sadly, they probably are. Self-deluded, candy-ass lying scumbag asshole hypocrites to the ninth order, to a man! And a woman! (I’m looking at YOU, Ann Coulter!) To hell with them all!