Come together

Owen West, a reserve Marine major who served in Iraq, and the founder of Vets for Freedom, provides a clear-eyed explanation of the war:

Somehow Operation Iraqi Freedom, not a large war by America's historical standards, has blossomed into a crisis of expectations that threatens our ability to react to future threats with a fist instead of five fingers. Instead of rallying we are squabbling, even as the slow fuse burns.

One party is overly sanguine, unwilling to acknowledge its errors. The other is overly maudlin, unable to forgive the same. The Bush administration seeks to insulate the public from the reality of war, placing its burden on the few. The press has tried to fill that gap by exposing the raw brutality of the insurgency; but it has often done so without context, leaving a clear implication that we can never win.. . .

We are clashing with an enemy who has been at war with us in one form or another for two decades. Our military response may take decades more. We have crossed several rivers and the nation is hoping that ahead lie streams. But if they are oceans, we should heed Lincoln's call: "With malice toward none, with charity for all ... let us strive on to finish the work we are in."

This is the vision we hoped for after 9/11, but it ended once the anti-war left and the Deaniacs became ascendant once more.

I saw that Bobby Kennedy, Jr. is publishing a piece claiming that the Republicans committed massive voter fraud and stole Ohio in 2004, and it made me sad. Even if it were true, which I don't believe, what good does it do to obsess over it? Nixon probably should have won in 1960, and I think his bitterness over it lead to Watergate. He didn't need any of the enemies list or the plumbers to beat McGovern, but his obsession with playing hardball got the better of him.

The Democrats are now in the middle of the same state of bitter obsession. But we don't re-do elections, two years after they have been done. Is it really possible that they could hate Bush more than they already do? If this is supposed to charge up the base, it's too soon. If not, it's nothing more than an historical exercise, and historians will never agree on it.