On 30 May 2004 02:28:58 GMT, (WalterM140) wrote:

Just for Ed:

"The Bush Administration has not made it easy on its supporters. David Brooks
now admits that he was gripped with a "childish fantasy" about Iraq. Tucker
Carlson is "ashamed" and "enraged" at himself. Tom Friedman, admitting to being
"a little slow," is finally off the reservation. Die-hard Republican publicist
William Kristol admits of Bush, "He did drive us into a ditch." The neocon
fantasist and sometime Republican speechwriter Mark Helprin complains on the
Wall Street Journal editorial page--the movement's Pravda--of "the inescapable
fact that the war has been run incompetently, with an apparently deliberate
contempt for history, strategy, and thought, and with too little regard for the
American soldier, whose mounting casualties seem to have no effect on the
boastfulness of the civilian leadership."

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i...607&s=alterman

Walt

You know what? I agree with you. The Bush administration has not made
it easy on its supporters! But, you can say the same thing about other
administrations as well. Did Clinton make it easy on his supporters?
George Stephanopolous, one of the early true believers, resigned to
write his memoir "All Too Human" when he discovered his savior had
feet of clay. It's part of the process of politics in America.

Gotta confess though, that the characterization of the WSJ as some
version of Pravda is a bet of hyperbole.

And, let's put the "mounting casualties" thing into perspective this
weekend as we recall 400,000 from WWII and 58,000 KIA from SEA. Any
casualties are regretable, but they are part of the price to be paid
for defense of the things we value. Different folks will set the price
at different levels, but there will always be a price.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8