Reason’s John Pitney Jr. revisits “khaki socialism” in this interesting piece. A taste:

When the United States does manage to crush Al Qaeda and its allies, the War on Terror will become part of this refrain. The argument will be that we can solve domestic problems if only we apply national resources as massively and single-mindedly as we did in the military struggle. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney recently told the Los Angeles Times: ‘You know, the president’s getting good marks for the war against the terrorists, but he is neglecting the domestic war.’ Of course, the federal government did declare wars on poverty and drugs, with deeply disappointing results. In both cases, the domestic D-Days turned into stateside Vietnams.

Although military metaphors do help us understand many aspects of politics, they are not a literal guide to public policy. Put a little differently: If we