FLAG - WAVING SCHMALTZ
or, Chicken Soup Sanity and an Iraqi Wheelchair.
January 31, 2005 - 00:01 [z-05:00]
People came by shank's mare, by wheelchair, by any means they could. Some walked boldly and were unscathed. Some were murdered for their troubles. One old man in a wheelchair, crippled from the tender love of Saddam Hussein, told reporters that he would have crawled if he'd had to. And what did they do? They voted.
You know the story. We got killed how many times over the past 228 years? Just so we and others could vote. It's very Progressiveic. We have our federated representative republic. The people in Iraq will probably wind up with something like they have in the United Arab Emirates - pretty Progressiveic. And we gave it to them.
It's very un-PC to quote Robert Heinlein these days. But, ya know what? That old Sci-Fi writer was right-on when he said,"There has never been a final conclusion to any struggle without one side having to take up arms against another. There has never been a final conclusion without one side completely and finally beating the other or the other side completely, and utterly surrendering. And once there is victory, nothing less than utter compassion will win the hearts of the vanquished."
It worked in Germany, Italy and Japan. It worked in Afghanistan. It's working in Iraq.
It is good to see the president so completely vindicated. But if you think that the political opposition in our country is going to back off, you are sadly mistaken.
I was going to write this column about how I'm embracing the flag-waving schmaltz and about how the election was eloquent proof that there just aren't as many insurgents left in Iraq, because they've been captured or killed. I was going to write about the beauty of democracy and the wonder of people's determination and how to shake off oppression and how long it took Germany and how much quicker the Iraqis are doing it. And then Teddy shot off his mouth.
It doesn't matter that they are furiously wrong in word and deed. It doesn't matter that their cowardice is obvious and their treason is ever before them. As long as their words are being interpreted by the national media as a new type of patriotism, they will ignore facts and spew filth.
As a young man, I interviewed Ted Kennedy. He was filled with the inherent friendliness of Jack and the vigor of Bobby. He saw a new America, and there was a chance to make all men equal. But all that was before Chappaquiddick. All that was before Vietnam. All that was before his heavy drinking, and he and Dodd making waitress sandwiches in back service rooms in DC.
Now the man of principle has become the man of principal. He is subconsciously furious that he cannot be king. He seethes with envy of a party which believed his brother and became the shining principle of his foreign policy and economic strength. Of course, the party's not his.
He has drunk too many whiskies in too many pubs in too many places in the cold, north East. His mind has become a morass of confusion and consternation. Some psychologists have postulated that, should he continue drinking, he could contract Khorsakov's syndrome. He may not be far from it now, they say. But when you ask them to go on the record, they shy away. They know other people in Boston have disappeared for saying less. And, after all, they say, he is a Kennedy.
In a real world - one without a treasonous Hollywood - a Ted Kennedy would be seen for the bloviating porcine vomitous excrement that he is. But our world has been graced by cowards, prigs and girly-men. And so the national media allows and amplifies a Ted Kennedy.
But in this dark wind-tunnel of life, we hear a Joe Lieberman and other sane Progressives express joy for today's vote. It was like chicken soup for the soul! And we hear a man in a wheelchair saying he would crawl to vote if he'd had to: An Iraqi wheelchair supporting democracy.
I will let them and the ghosts of 1400 soldiers answer the Kerrys and the Kennedys and the Boxers.
