The amazing rise of the angry little doctor.

[M]

The Democrats have, since 2000, been getting angrier and angrier at the GOP and later independents. It all started with the Recount. Not the impeachment- that was added onto the list later my demagogic revisionists.

Then there was the 11th, when the most liberal Dem watched Bush with respect and admiration grab that bullhorn. "I can hear you! The whole world can hear you! And the people who knocked those towers down will be hearing from us real soon." The nation cheered the Patriot Act, the whole country listened with approval as Bush announced that rogue states were terrorists as much as the terrorists themselves.

We went to war with the Taliban. RW Apple's first quagmirish piece came out. Everyone still supported the president officially. But the very lefty among us began to feel uncomfortable. They couldn't oppose the war, but the brief surge of patriotism was draining from them adn they were revolted by their own proud American feelings, the sort that has marginalized partisanship in WW2.

After the war they began to vent. The war was strategically brilliant and morally praiseworthy, but we had failed to secure the peace. The nation was rampant with guerillas. This was true, and nobody really noticed that anything was too amiss.

But Vietnam syndrome cannot be cured as simply as Lost Generation syndrome was cured by Pearl Harbor. It was too deep and too fundamentally anti-American. By the time, an entire year later, Bush wanted to take on the next rogue terror mastermind, Saddam Hussein, liberals were remembering that Bush has "stolen" the election.The majority of lefty politicians tepidly supported the war. But their oen support was decaying. Eventually straddling the divide was the worst choice of all. Lefty idealogues that Dems had betrayed them with their pseudo-patriotism, And the GOP and moderate independents realized the Dems had dumped the idea of bipartisan pro-Americanship against our common enemy. So, in 2002, we dumped them.

Now, the presidential election was heating up. Daschle and increasingly Kerry sounded anti-American, pro-France, and at least sympathetic to Baathism, PLO, etc. They made up the ridiculous idea we were not at war with terror sponsors, or even terrorism itself persay, but merely with Al-Qaeda.

Then came a horrid shock to all lib idealogues. We finally went to war with Iraq and 3/4 Americans felt it was the right thing to do. Now, in case any of you haven't figured it out yet, WMD was just an unsuccessful ploy to get France to go along with us. It was outweiged by France's Iraqi debt, oil contracts, personal involvement with Saddam's WMD, etc. We went to wwar with Saddam because of 9/11. No, Saddam didn't plan. He may have given them operational support through Prague embassy, but that really wasn't the point. We went after Saddam because he was a.) a terror sponsor, and b.) a brutal dictator, whose removal wouyld spark a domino effect in the Mideast. (BTW, it has- see Bahrein, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan, Oman, UAE, Morocco, Egypt, even Saudi steps toward democracy. Also Israel's improving relations w/ many Arab states.)

So post war the dems were mad as hell and they wanted no more of it. Bush was a liar, we went to war for noreason, or oil, or to gain a colony (huh?), or as parrt of an evil Zionist conspiracy, or cause they just liked war, or because Bush was really stupid, or even all of the above.

All this without our little friend Howie, the darling of the media and academia (whose views he shares completely). So where's he come from? Lurch's pride.

Yes, Lurch. (Althought to me he more closely resembles Sam the Eagle.) Little Howard Dean, an angry yippie and an absolute nobody, started attacking Kerry. Kerry, he claimed, supported war with Iraq and then turned around and opposed it. He, Dean, had always opposed it. This was nectar and ambrosia to dogmatic Dems. But they wouldn't have heard a bit of it. After all, Graham had a similar campaign that never caught on, and he was a sitting senator from an important state.

Suddenly, Senator Kerry takes off the gloves, saying furiously that he has an impressize war resume and a proud record of public service, so bug off, you little twit. Suddenly people saw Dean. And more and more of 'em liked what they saw.

So Dean moves further and further to the left, and rich yippies are giving him millions. Kerry just swerves left in a vain attempt to catch up with him. Everyone else also moves leftand gets angrier. So now it looks like the choice for Dems is Dean or Dean clones. Around this time Vilsack announces Dean is part of a top tier. Time Magazine picks this up and suddenly everyone knows Dean's name.

Now, Joe isn't taken in. The media can't stand him. He had a few brownie points for being Gore's running mate and nobly waiting to see if Gore would run for pres (which of course he wouldn't, knowing he would lose clearly this time.) Joe gets a few good punches in defending Israel. The media barely mentions this. When they do, the spin is that Lieberman is the negative one for bashing Dean for bashing Bush, and suddenly Joe's candidacy disappears.

Clinton, Hillary, Gore, and McAuliffe are getting more and more worried. The coalition Clinton had brought together and made the strongest political power in the nation was fracturing. it was spinning off to the left, and Bill knew he had to avert disaster, by any means necessary.

Enter Wesley Clark. The general, a lifelong Republican who never got along at all with Clinton, let the Russkis take Pristina airport (which they still hold), and can't make up his mind on a single issue, suddenly gets a lot of media buzz. Why? He's swarming with Clintonites. And he goes... nowhere. Ouch. Every speech he makes has a new wacky foreign policy idea, and all the while he says presidential candidates shouldn't make foreign policy decisions. He's not even a good speaker. So he sinks like a stone.

Some effort now gets pumped into Edwards campaign, which was on life support. A formerly working class Southron with, uh, "great" hair, he briefly had a lot of media buzz several months back. Then people figured out he was a broken record with a single line: "My father used to work in a sawmill with lint in his hair and grease in his face." This was his answer to every question from, "why not wait till 2008?", to, "how would you deal with North Korea?" Where that'll go, we have yet to see. But it doen't look too encouraging.

Then we have Dick Gephardt. Oh, boy. The man who kept getting a few more seats in the House and a few more and then... 2002 disaster. The darling of organized labor, whose components are going Dean. The caucus is going to be on a below zero January evening. Who would motivate you to go out and "chill" with your fellow partisans, and nominate your candidate? The entertaining little doctor, with his strongly held radical positions and his fury? Or Richard Gephardt, who was serious concerns about the poposed FTAA? Um, yeah...

Well, at this point I'd call Howie unstoppable. Thoughts?

[M]

Could you please give me specific places you disagree so I can debate it with you. It's a little difficult to reasonably debate a personal insult.

I mean this post for serious discussion. These are my ideas, and I'm interested in hearing other viewpoints.

I don't deny you the right to your ideas. I may not agree with them, but you are absolutely welcome to discuss them here or anywhere else.

[M]

Gad, that hurts, the politicizing 9/11 charge. Did FDR politicize Pearl Harbor by calling it a day of infamy and going to war?

But you're right, Dean is a Rove trap for the Dems. And it looks like you're going to walk blingly into it.

The GOP's best move here is to play absolutely Machiavellian, and allow the Dems to make fools of themselve.

As stated before, I like Joe Lieberman. I also like John McCain and Rudi and Arnold. I'm a social liberal, lean to wards conservative on economics, and a Wilsonian on foreign policy. When I debate political opponents, they give me their take on prescription drugs, and I may disagree but I understand their views, but annyone who mimics Chamberlain today is worse than he is because they have him as an example.

[M]

I keep being one post behind! Yeah, Gephardt would be a fairly strong candidate. If you can nominate him.

D majority, thank you for being civil and not personally insulting me.

[M]

I agree with everything you said, except that, in my view, the most important aspect of WW2 was as a battle of ideologies, a battle between freedom and fear like the present as opposed to a battle for land.

You have the perfect right to disagree with me. I admit I may be wrong. I just take offense to the idea that I'm just spouting partisan crap and should remove myself from the forum. Shame on you, Realpolitik!

[M]

You may not agree with some of my ideas, and that's fine. But I have the right to express them.

Voltaire: I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to say it to the death!

Demrepdan, that's a good one! You should post it in the humor forum.

[M]

I honestly swear this wasn't meant as a rant, but rereading it I see how it may have been taken that way. Partly because it's so long; once I start up I don't kno where to stop. I'm sorry I gave that impression.

Actually, I would be interested in debating any of the points brought up in this article if anyone will challenge me specifically.

[M]

Daz, thanks for your vote of confidence! It was pretty strongly worded, but it contained no personal attacks or deliberate falsehoods.

There if realpolitik would like to discuss a specific issue, such as the nature of the war or a certain candidate's strenght and weaknesse, then I would like to do so.

[M]

I really do not intend to come across as some foaming at the mouth radical, and I want to smokum peace pipe with y'all. Ok, Beet, I see what you are saying about many of your points. It is true that we do need more debate in this country. Personally I feel GWB made a mistake even making the issue be WMD, which was not the point at all- the point was fighting terror and the expansion of worldwide democracy.

I agree the split is a tragedy, but I believe this is the fault of the current French government, which has dirty interests in the Arab World, is notoriously anti-American and anti-Semitic (not just anti-Israeli), and currently leading a drive for an EU constitution that would decrease its responsiveness to democracy.

And, unlike Ms. Coulter, I do not pardon every Republican in history or villify every Democrat. As a matter of fact, I think LBJ was a greater leader than Ike or Nixon, although most people of both parties hate him.

So, while I disagree with you on several points, I agree that they are just differences of opinion and not fundamentally anti-American. The reference to anti-Americanness in my article referred to "Vietnam-syndrome". By this I meant the people who oppose all wars involving the USA out of hand and who always seem to support the USA's enemies in wars. These likely are often a small minority, but they are very powerful. I do think that either Dean is one of these or he is strongly influenced by them. Many of his supporters are.

This article was, in fact, my attempt to chronicle the rise of Howie and not to villify him specifically. In fact, what worries me most about Dean is that, as a Zionist, I am very uncomfortable with his feeling that the MidEast's only democracy somehow deserves the same level of respect and consideration as a terrorist organization (the PLO). This, I think, is also part of the same idea of all nations being equal morally, the idea behind the UN.

Your idea of the civilized (by which I take it you mean democratic) world as a single house I find fascinating. I think it is an ideal that is not yet fully realized, but, b"h, it'll happen before too long. Our most significant conflicts with nations like France are generally over how to treat the remaining world dictatorships. I believe that once all world nations are free, there will, in fact, be no more war. This is the biggest reason I support any war to remove a tyrant like Milosevic or Saddam.

My feelings are similar to those of our good ally Tony Blair, who said (not exact words): "Why are we only going after Saddam? Why not Mugabe, or the Burmese lot. You can't always get 'em, but when you can, you should.

[M]

Ok, I can prove France is antisemitic! Easy as pie. Let me just search the web and find a suitable article. Ah! Here we go:
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/031122/325/eenkd.html

And yes, nearly all who oppose official Israeli policy without even mentioning the fact that the other side is ten times worse in any category (Syrian tyranny, Arafat terror, etc.) is clearly an anti-Semite. I, for example, do not like the security fence, or the demolition of the homes of terrorists. But I do know that the Arab despotisms are far worse. Those who leave that part out (UN, EU, Media, Academia) are indeed exhibiting antisemitism.

On the EU, I have no problem with the idea, even if the resulting Union because the most powerful nation on Earth. I do have a problem with the fact that the proposed constitution weakens the elected European parliament and strengthens an unelected commission.

As for anti-Americansim, Chirac constantly refers to the EU as a counterweight to the unilateralist USA publicly. He also seems to be courting a Franco-Russo-Sino-Arab alliance. However, only the particularly nasty Moslem regimes (especially Iran and Syria) seem interested. Schroeder sided with Chirac to win an election, now his popularity is down the drain (partly on economy, but also because he weakenedrtant relationship without any apparent gain for Germany. The only nation that truly sided with France is the same Belgian government that attempted to try Bush, Blair, and Sharon for war crimes.

You'll be interested to know that I do, in fact, do view France as an American ally, and I think our relations will pick up again. One will also notice that a significant pro-American movement has arisen at home inFrance. One of its leaders is the famous French philosopher Henri-Bernard Levy. But is absurd for the stance of the Champs d'Elysee to dictate American policy.

The difference between nationalism and patriotism is a subtle one, and it's been debated by scholars for a long time. Bu a patriot supports his nation because of the ideal of the nation, not its racial/cultural character. A patriot is in many ways an ideologue.

A proud American nationalist would say, "We are the nation of American English speakind cultural Yankees! In the name of the glory of our people, we must unite all who are culturally Anglo and spread our culture around the world!" We get accused of this a lot, but you rarely run into anyone advocating this platform!

A proud American patriot says, "America is the land of freedom. It is our duty to spread the ideal of freedom around the world. Anyone can be an American, they merely must believe in the fundamental rightness of freedom." In this sense, a Soviet communist ideaogue might be closer to a patriot then a nationalist.

OK, what have we won with the sabre an the gun? You'd be surprised:

American revolution: The birth of the Republic, which was to make freedom the dominant force on Earth. The beginning of the fall of monarchy.

French Revolution/Age of Napoleon/1848: For all of its failures, horrors, and dictatorship, at last the idea of democracy and self-governmnt spread in Europe, to Monarchy's detriment.

Civil War: the end of slavery, the federalisation of the nation we would need to face the monstrosities the next hundred years would bring.

WWI: The fall of imperialism and divine right of kings as dominant political movements.

WWII: The single most important and justified war of all time, and the reason that I think anyone who question all war out of hand must be some kind of sicko. The defeat of Nazism, fascism, and Japanese Imperialism.

Cold War, including Korea and, yes, Viet Nam: The defeat of communism. The Soviet Union was, in fact, an evil empire, one of the most monstrous regimes of all time.

War on terror: B"h, the defeat of Baathism, radical Wahhabism, and radical Shi'ism, and the subsequent decay of the power of nasty despots across the mideast.

Was the world necessarily better off because all of these wars happened? Not necessarily. But you cannot deny that there are wars that are morally right. Anyone who rejects war out of hand, I refer to Thicydides: "War is an evil thing, but to submit to the dictation of other states is worse...
Freedom, if we hold fast to it, will ultimately restore our losses, but submission
will mean permanent loss of all that we value... To you who call yourselves men of peace,
I say: You are not safe unless you have men of action on your side."

[M]

I never condemned demonstations, people of any political persuasion to have a right to campaign for what they believe in. By this I of course mean nonviolent demonstrations, which the anti-Iraq demonstations were. I do think the demonstrators were wrong, but not illegal.

I have a problem to some degree with the settlements too, especialy the ones that are practically uninhabited or deep w/in the W. Bank. I do think eventually there will be boundary revisions before a Palestinian state is formed.

The reason there is no moral equality apart from the Arafat is a tyrannical thug issue, is that the PLO goes straight for civilians and the Israelis try to uproot terrorists. Unavoidable civilian casualties is not the same as genocide.

[M]

As to the question why Iraq and not another nation if the big issue was democracy, there are several reasons I can think of:

A possible domino effect, spreading reform across the region.

Iraq was a pariah with seventeen UN resolutions like a sword of Damocles over its head. It was thought this would make it easy to garner international support.

An easy one to take out, weakened by years of sanctions.

Iraq, more than, ecp. Cuba, posed a direct threat to some of our allies: the Kurds, Kuwait, Jordan, Israel (to an extent).

Also, Cuba has strong domestic reform movements led by Oswaldo Paya, and will likely become a democracy after Castro's death, a la Spain. No such viable movements were present inside of Iraq.

Also, thank you Ryan for sticking up for me! I never intended the post to be nonpartisan, if I did you might have a solid beef with me. There was a bit of my own wry sense of humor in there, coupled with my somewhat biased take on historical events. Nevertheless, It was not a personal attack against anyone, including herr realpolitik, nor did it contain any intentional falsehoods.

Another example of French anti-Semitism: after Mohammed Mahathir's despicable rant, Italy, as rotating head of the EU, intended to condemn the speech. Chirac vetoed that, too.

[M]

Thanks, all. Especially realpolitik, that was very decent of you to explain yourself. I for one will make a good faith effort to avoid being quite so upsetting to you again. (I won't switch parties though!)

Hmm... beet, you're a funny guy! But I think if you want the main reason Bush picked Iraq, if you accept at least for the sake of argument that Bush was mostly trying for a "when you can, you should", is that Iraq is in the MidEast, a region that definitely needs change. While we differ greatly on the methods for change, I think nearly every American would agree that the current situation is unstable, dangerous, and just plain untenable.