Tuesday, August 15, 2006

 

Lieberman Makes Sense; Campos Doesn't

After a couple of weeks of inoffensive, albeit somewhat pedestrian, columns, the local Mad Munchkin, law professor Paul Campos has returned to form with a completely incoherent case of the vapors over plain talk from the last of his kind, pro defense Democrat Joe Lieberman. Behold Lieberman's offending quote:

"I'm worried that too many people, both in politics and out, don't appreciate the seriousness of the threat to American security and the evil of the enemy that faces us - more evil, or as evil, as Nazism, and probably more dangerous than the Soviet communists we fought during the long Cold War."

Paul Campos can't believe anyone would be so stupid as to say that. He writes:

That a statement like this is treated as a reasonable observation rather than denounced as transparently hysterical nonsense indicates the extent to which hysterical nonsense now passes for clear-eyed statesmanship. And that should be far more frightening to Americans than any terrorist threat.

The Nazis were really bad, as Professor Campos points out: The Nazis managed to murder perhaps 10 million people, while starting a war that killed at least 40 million others.

Yeah, by 1945 they did that, but in the mid 30s, their murder victims numbered in the few hundreds, rising each year. In the current countdown to a third hot world war in a 100 years, Hezbollah and al Qaeda are actually ahead of the Nazis.

Campos has more semi-reasoned argument that Lieberman is wrong: At the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union's explicit goal was to establish a global communist dictatorship. In the pursuit of this goal, the Soviets built an army of 6 million men, equipped with, among many other things, 10,000 nuclear weapons, which in a matter of minutes could have wiped the United States off the face of the Earth, while killing perhaps 150 million Americans.

Yes, but the Soviets were not suicidal fanatics and could be deterred from too blatant adventurism or a direct attack on the United States because of our military might and the MAD doctrine. Does anyone think that our several thousand nuclear weapons deters al Qaeda for a second? Didn't seem to scare them much 5 years ago.

But there's more: More Americans drown in bathtubs every year than are killed by terrorists...

Clearly Campos is in the camp (with Michael Moore) that doesn't believe there is a terrorist threat, and whatever threat it composes is somehow less a threat than fellow Democrat Senator Lieberman' supposedly wild eyed, cowardly wolf crying.

It was Lieberman's point that many Democrats don't see the true danger of Islamic fascism; Paul Campos could not have proved Lieberman's fears any better had he actually tried.

Comments:
Your points here are spot on.


Mark Dunn
 
Whether Lieberman is right or wrong about the dangers posed by the bad guys is not the point. Indeed, if he's right about the dangers posed, all the more reason to hold him and the Bush crowd accountable.

The point is that by invading Iraq and incompetently screwinging the whole process up was not being strong on national security and just served to divert everyone's attention away from those who attacked us- Al Qaeda. Its now become very clear that Blind allegence to George Bush and his "stay the course" policy is not the right way to fight these
guys. And by constantly harping about how bad these guys are, and how afraid we should be, guys like Lieberman are just trying make everyone forget up incompetent he and others were in conducting the Iraq affair. Fortunatly Joe failed to fool the good people of Connecticut, and thats why they defeated him.
 
Roger and Prague Twin:

The planets align; Venus is in the House of Pies; I agree w/ George Will.

Read this morning's column. At one point he states:

"The 'new Middle East,'the 'birth pangs' of which we are supposedly witnessing, reflects the region's oldest tradition, the tribalism that preceded nations. The faux and disintegrating nation of Iraq from which the middle class, the hope of stability, is fleeing, has experienced in these five weeks many more violent deaths than have occurred in Lebanon and Israel."

In referring to the statement of an anonymous senior Bush administration's oficial, Mr. Will, conclused: "This farrago and non sequitur makes the administration seem eager to repel all but the delusional. But perhaps such rhetoric reflects the intellectual contortions required to sustain the illusion that the war in Iraq is central to the war on terrorism and that war, unlike 'the law enforcement approach,' (referring to Sen. Kerry's remarks in the candidates' debate in SC on 1.29.04) does 'work.'"

Ye Gods.
 
Thanks Mark, and local good guy radio host Mike Rosen said nearly the same things on his show this morning.
Anon, I'm no longer trying to persuade you Iraq has been a great success, there is none so blind as he who will not see.
Tony, see comments below. Has blog reading become just a search for 'friends', that is, people or opinions we already agree with? I fear it is so.
 
Now, now, Roger.

If I were looking for people w/ whom I agree, I would not dally here.

I just find it curious that Mr. Will and I agree on on 2 issues upon which you and I disagree.

If we are only looking for friends, we would become the internet versions of dittoheads or afficiandos of Air America.

What did you mean by below?

T
 
You are the exception which causes us to doubt the rule. Below means my comment on will under the posting about Winners and Losers. Take care.
 
"Anon, I'm no longer trying to persuade you Iraq has been a great success"

What a coincidence, the Kansas City Royals announced today that they will no longer try to convince anyone that they're better than the Yankees.
 
The Yankees outspend everyone else and have a pretty good team. The Rangers outspend everyone else and suck big time. Most poeple say I wouldn't want to be like the Rangers. I say I wouldn't want to be like the Yankees. Thanks for the sports metaphor. At least I could understand it.
 
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