It's too bad the anti-war right doesn't stage *something*.

Well Dan, I wasn't in the crowd, but I did switch back and forth between the President's Cup golf on NBC and C-Span. From what I saw, the most important point in your latest commentray was that this rag-tag collection of moronic rabble can only succeed in driving more people away from their cause (if, given the incredible number of disparate "causes", one single focus could be determined).

They were for the most part incoherent, incomprehensible, and reprehensible.

Ahh, but they were against the war...so Dan is all for them.

Those people care about as much for the slain soldiers as they do about the paper upon which they print their heinous anti-American propaganda. The fallen are only important insofar as they can be used to further the anti's agenda.

Oh...but boxers are heros because they risk their lives for...money and fame. Now THAT's heroic.

Obi Juan, first, if the pro-American Right were to ever stage such a demonstration, the MSM wouldn't cover it. Second, as most of them actually have jobs and commitments, it's significantly more difficult than for the professional agitators and "activists" on the Left.

Curtis, I agree with your assessment of the anti-war crowds true level of caring and support for the troops. Having experienced the venom and hate spewed by the this same group on ingrates in the 70's, I can only conclude that Cindy Sheehan, while genuinely grieving for her lost son, and the vast majority of these folks have no regard whatsoever for "The Troops". What they HAVE is an understanding that if they DON'T mouth the right platitudes, the alienation most of the country feels for them would only increase geometrically. Thus, they oppose the war but support the troops.

If anyone else out there listened to the unfocused ramblings that the likes of Jesse Jackson, Jessica Lange, Cindy S and others uttered yesterday, I would love for them to explain what Puerto Rican independence, overthrow of the Phillipino government, the "plight" of the Palestinian terrorists, the protection of the North Koreans and other such clearly connected subjects had to do with an anti-war rally.

It's said you can tell a lot about a person by the friends they keep. Well, since Ramsey Clark, George Galloway, Jesse Jackson, Jand Fonda and so many others of these "peace lovers" adore and support the likes of Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong Il, Fidel Castro and yes, Uncle Ho, that tells me all I need to know about 'em!

Doesn't mean they don't have the right to say whatever they like, but I for one ain't buyin' whatever they're sellin'!

Dan, I just reread a portion of your commentary on the anti-war protests, and a phrase caught my eye. You wrote "Americans are dying in a far-off land in a war based on since-discredited presumptions". I know of only one apparently discredited assumption, that being Saddam Hussein possessed WMDs at the time of the U.S.-led invasion. Two questions: first, what was the other "discredited" assumption. Second, if the ultimate liberation of a sorely oppressed people and the elimination of clear and present danger to the tenuous stability of the Middle East was not sufficient cause for military action, what then justified U.S. involvement in Europe during WWII?

Two questions: first, what was the other "discredited" assumption.

That they would welcome us with open arms. Or that they would welcome liberal democracy.

I'm going to preempt something you are going to say with this:
The 'myth' of Iraq's foreign fighters

Thom, in World War II, Germany declared war on us and Japan bombed us at Pearl Harbor. I'm glad you concede, like the president does, that the pre-war WMD assumptions were wrong. An additional pre-war assumption, repeatedly embraced by the vice president, was the not very subtle suggestion that Iraq was involved with 9/11.

Calling the failure to uncover any WMD an incorrect pre-war assumption really trivializes the long, obnoxious, propaganda campaign that led us to war. The incorrect pre-war assumptions were that we would be greeted as liberators, that Iraq's oil revenues would finance our occupation, that we would be down to 30,000 troops by now, and that it would trigger a democratic revolution across the Middle East. WMD wasn't an incorrect presumption, it was the casus belli, the raison d'etre for us skirting over international law, dropping Osama from our sights, and sending thousands of Americans -- and Iraqis -- to an early grave. WMD was the cause of the war. Without WMD our invasion and occupation of Iraq is unjustified, unnecessary, and meaningless.

People on the Left are kooks. But the people behind the war in Iraq are kooks with guns. So who's more dangerous?

The left is so terribly frustrating. They can never have the good sense as a group to maintain any focus at all. A middle America type war protest could be very effective right now with opinion polls indicating a clear shift against Bush. But in order to form such a movement the organizers have to be sane.

Curtis, I read your arguments against Dan's use of the term "heroism" in the earlier post and you the insult you are taking from it seems too exaggerated. To be heroic in the old classical sense of Homer is to "be like the gods," that is, to be exceptional for some attribute(s). This is why kids do look up to their fathers and even athletes as "heroes"; it is a pretty normal impulse to recognize someone else's "exceptionalism" in that manner. The issue of the relative merits of different people or weighing different groups particular claims to being considered "heroic" is another issue entirely. Sure, if "heroism" simply means "risking death for others" then cops, soldiers, firemen, etc., are the only heros going. But I don't think perspective is immediately lost when heroism is regarded in more expansive terms like Flynn is doing.

The paradigmatic case of heroism will always be the ones you suggest but those cases are not diminished by recognizing the impressive and exceptional efforts made by humans in non-life-risking-for-others endeavors.