Yours is no disgrace

I swam in the fevered swamps of the Winger blogosphere tonight, and even left a nice comment for (as TBogg calls him) Special Ed, for his fairly balanced response to the Al-Qaeda taunting after Tuesday's election results. You know, taunts like "We applaud the Democrat victory because it means more dead Americans and long live the Caliphate!" And I tried, really tried, to be polite and non-confrontational:

Ed:

As a deeply committed Democrat who loves his country, wants us to win the war on terrorism, and grieves for every America life lost in Iraq, I thank you for your honesty.

We are not the enemy, contrary to what some on your side of the aisle say. We are not defeatocrats, we are not cut-and-runners. Instead we question the wisdom of leaders that get us into situations that we don't seem to need to be in.

Whether it's Johnson in re: Gulf of Tonkin, or GWBush in re: Iraq, we want the best for our country, and especially for our brave and patriotic service people in harms way.

Thanks for not getting too worked up at the political ravings of Al-Qaeda idiots, who will say and do anything to piss us off and divide us.

You and I may agree or disagree about much, but I think we are both loyal Americans.

And then I found this in the upstream comments to the same post:

the dems are controlled by the left.

the left will do to the iraqis what they did to the south vietnamese and the contras: abandon them to tyrannical totalistarians.

they will attempt to expand the government and rwise taxes and socialize industries - like healthcare.

they must be fought, not accommodated.

conservatives need to get the gop to stop being a wimpy half-assed version of reaganism and re-embrace the REALL THING.

this starts with electing leaderrshiop which is more like newt than robert michel - which is what you seem to be advocating.

we must be a loyal opposition - LOYAL TO AMERICA, NOT THE SMOOTH WORKING OF THE CONGRESSIONAL SYSTEM.

if it wasn't for hastert's and frist's poor handling of jefferson and foley and immigration and judicial nominations WE'D HAVE WON.

we'd have held more house seats and not lost montana or missouri.

it all started to unravel after the leftist succeeded in getting rid of TOM DELAY.

they knew this would happen.

he was the last true believer ionb the CVongressional leadership and had been holding the GOP in the Congress together and he was the reason bush has such a GREAT legislative record the first five years.

we need a man like him or newt and reagan.

not accommodaters.

bush needs to take the congress on - HEAD-ON - and not weasel aropund with them.

if he sucks up to them the GOP will lose.

bush sr LOST reelection.
and cinton and tester and mcgaskill prove that the dems only win when there're THREE candidates on the ballot - and when two SPLIT the right.

we need to UNITE THE RIGHT, not make the right more centrist or more like the left.

all the best!

Dude! First, Spell check is your friend. If you're not literate, don't blog.

Second, . . .

Never mind, you wouldn't understand.

But then, a little further down, we find...sanity:

Terrorism is here to stay, one way or another. How are you ever going to prove convincingly that a certain course of action was right or wrong?

Let's call the two approaches, in so far as they differ, the "military" and the "diplomatic" approach. Each has merits, each has situations to which they are ideally suited, each has weaknesses. And, to knee-jerk critics, they each have automatic arguments against them.

When the Military option is preponderant, every act of terrorism will be decried as the result of radicalizing otherwise neutral individuals. When the Diplomatic option is the normal course of action, every act of terrorism will be decried as the result of appeasing otherwise timid individuals. The question is simply not susceptible to proof either way, so the Cap'n will have plenty of opportunity to assert his faith.

I'm surprised that one thing has not been mentioned: the parallel between Abu Hamza's remarks and the freeing of the Iranian hostages as soon as Carter had left office. Of course the other side is going to take every twist and turn of domestic politics and claim it as a victory. You don't need to be a particularly incisive political analyst to know that. I'll applaud the Cap'n, at the very least, for not rising to that bait.

Now that's someone I could sit down and talk to...well, maybe.