{"id":9974,"date":"2007-10-11T08:28:05","date_gmt":"2007-10-11T14:28:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/?p=9974"},"modified":"2007-10-11T08:28:05","modified_gmt":"2007-10-11T14:28:05","slug":"jimmah-and-the-chickenhawk-smear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/proteinwisdom.com\/?p=9974","title":{"rendered":"Jimmah and the Chickenhawk smear"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Sean at Brea Canyon<\/a>, here’s the world’s worst ex-CiC using his absolute moral authority (civilian military? Bah! Did the founding fathers build houses for a select few poor, then keep them as indentured servants<\/a> to property tax increases?) to attack<\/a> VP Cheney before an international audience:<\/p>\n

“[Vice President Cheney is] a militant who avoided any service of his own in the military and he has been most forceful in the last 10 years or more in fulfilling some of his more ancient commitments that the United States has a right to inject its power through military means in other parts of the world,” Carter told the BBC World News America in an interview to air later on Wednesday.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One wonders how exactly this characterization of a sitting VP in a time of war is particularly “helpful,” to use one of Jimmah’s favorite lines of mock profundity.<\/p>\n

Further, though, it highlights the idiocy of the chickenhawk smear Carter and all the faux populists like to trot out whenever they find themselves unable to muster any kind of rational argument: to wit, it’s demonstrably true that Carter’s military service did nothing to make him a formidable CiC — and instead has made him so reluctant to use force, even when it was both justified and, one could argue, necessary, that were one so inclined, one could extrapolate out from Carter’s experience that military veterans are the least qualified to command the military as heads of state.<\/p>\n

This is, of course, a ludicrous argument — some of those with military experience are perfectly competent to handle the position of civilian military leader, just as some of those with no military experience are entirely capable of handling the CiC position as envisioned by the founders.<\/p>\n

But then, Carter is known primarily for ludicrous arguments and 70s-style “realism” (which, it turns out, was really nothing more than a literary conceit, a way to lend gravitas to affected ennui born from horrible policy prescriptions and a fundamental misunderstanding of both economics and the Cold War enemy). That he would trot out the chickenhawk argument for foreign consumption suggests that somewhere in his shriveled, self-aggrandizing heart, he recognizes that the argument relies for its force on the demand that those who run the military have military experience — and that no one without military experience has any right to affect military policy.<\/p>\n

Which, I suppose, is par for the course for a guy who seems mesmerized by charismatic revolutionaries<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Still, you’d think a guy who once took a vow to uphold the Constitution would at least believe<\/em> in the damned thing.<\/p>\n

But not Carter. Because, well, he just knows better<\/i> — though he can’t get enough people in this country to listen to his pleas to affect any real change. It is his tragic flaw. His cross to bear. His curse<\/i>.<\/p>\n

He believes himself a modern-day Cassandra. Chunky style.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Sean at Brea Canyon, here’s the world’s worst ex-CiC using his absolute moral authority (civilian military? Bah! Did the founding fathers build houses for a select few poor, then keep them as indentured servants to property tax increases?) to attack VP Cheney before an international audience: “[Vice President Cheney is] a militant who avoided any service of his own in the military and he has been most forceful in<\/p>\n

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