Drunken Mystic

Despite what some may see as my overwhelmingly “conservative” views on some subjects, I find myself in a funny position with conservatives on the War in Iraq.

Over the last century, up until the time of Ronald Regan, the Democrats were consistently the pro-war crowd.  An interesting mix, they were domestically and socially liberal but very strong on national defense, especially through the Cold War.

The one exception before Regan was Teddy Roosevelt, but I don’t really count him as a Republican.  He acted way more like a Democrat.  He was a hard liberal who also happened to be a Republican.  He picked a fight in Central America so he could build the Panama Canal.

Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, was president during WWI, a fairly reasonless war when you come right down to it.  To give Wilson credit, he wasn’t a war hawk necessarily, but as allies with Britain and France and popular opinion swaying against Germany, he knew it was only a matter of time.

FDR, a Democrat, was president during WWII.  Truman, a Democrat, dropped not one but two atomic bombs and then got us involved in the Korean War.

Who got us out of the Korean War?  Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican and a general who knew a little about war.

The next major conflict the US was involved in was Vietnam.  The presidents responsible for that debacle?  Two Democrats for the price of one, Kennedy and Johnson (especially Johnson).  We could also talk about how Kennedy’s presidency was the closes we ever got to real nuclear war with the Cuban Missle Crisis … but let’s stick with the Vietnam War.

While a noble cause during the Cold War, the US lost from the beginning.  Vietnam had been yanked around by the French, then raped by the Japanese, then got corrupt leaders supported by the West, all until they were completely tired of Western aggression and imperialism.  Communism sounded pretty good (it does at first … Yes We Can!) and the people were in love with Ho Chi Min.  While we won every battle we fought in that conflict, the hearts of the Vietnamese people were lost from the start.  We had supported and set up too many opressive and corrupt leaders.

So in ’68, Nixon was elected as president by advantage of a severely divided Democratic party over the Vietnam War.  Nixon gets a bad rap because the liberal media hated him and he was a paranoid grump.  But he was probably one of our better presidents this century … I’d probably put him ahead of all or most of the Democrats.

Who pulled us out of Vietnam?  Nixon, a Republican.  You know what else Nixon did?  He met with Mao Tse Tung.  That was one crazy Chinese communist dude, but Nixon was teh first American president to personally reach out to him and recognize the communist Chinese government … during the Cold War.

Jimmy Carter was the first Democratic president in 50 years NOT to get us into a war.  He was such a weak president in EVERY area that Regan was a shoo-in.

With Regan, you had a Republican president strong on defense and domestically conservative.  For his views on defense, Regan could have been another JFK.  The Carter/Regan transition is where the Republicans picked up this war hawk mentality that had previously belonged to the Democrats.

Okay, so what’s the lesson here?  Two things: first, the Democrats should love Nixon.  He was a cheater who pulled the country out of an unpopular war and met with an infamous dictator.  He should be their hero.  And they should be careful criticizing modern Republican war hawks – there’s plenty of violent war blame to go around in their party, too.

For the Republicans, they shouldn’t demonize Obama for suggesting the very things Nixon did over 30-40 years ago in the midst of the Cold War.

I’m not saying Obama will be a great commander in chief.  I think I have more military experience that he does, but to demonize him as a “cut and run” guy and willing to meet with evil dictators “without preconditions” is not necessarily anti-conservative or anti-Republican or always the wrong thing to do.

One of the things I respect most about Obama is he voted against the War in Iraq in the first place.  At least he’s been consistent.  I might have voted against it, too.  Not because I believe that Bush was a liar or some insane guy after Hussein, but I felt at the time it wasn’t the wisest of things to do.

Before you give me Hannity’s talking points, I understand we don’t want to leave it in worse shape than before, but that could realistically take another decade depending on your criteria.  We’ve done some good things in Iraq, a new government, trained their security forces, improved their infastructure.  Maybe it is time we have faith in what we’ve done and let go.

Peace.

Well, it has been an interesting week.  Obama was elected president, and we’re still talking about Sarah Palin.

Really?  I mean, come on.  Let’s think about the absurdity of a press who shrugs off any negative story on Obama (his support of domestic terrorists, rampant corruption in his state and federal positions) and they still report the most inane rumors they can find on Sarah Palin a week after she loses the election.

Really?

Some unknown source says she didn’t know that Africa is a continent … Hey, I’ve got an email with a video in it where Obama slips up and mentions his “Muslim faith.”  You gonna run with that, too?

No.  What we ask Obama is: what kind of dog will you get your daughter?  How do you feel about the BCS?

Hannity keeps saying 2008 is the year journalism died.  At first I suspected he was just being negative … I’m starting to believe him.

On a related front, the Obama campaign kicked off three newspapers from traveling with them, the only three who had backed McCain for the presidency.  I wonder what would have happened if McCain had kicked off all reporters associated with the major networks besides Fox News and the newspapers that backed Obama … hmnn.  By the way, Fox News, the only interview to really give Obama a tough time and tough questions, is also being frozen out by the Obama staff.

These are the actions of a despot, not the “leader of the FREE world.”

In the spirit of bipartisanship, promised by Obama himself on election night, Obama appointed one of the most partisan Democrats around, this according to the New York Times and the LA Times, as his Chief of Staff.  I must have a different definition of bipartisan in my dictionary …

Although Obama has spoken out about Reid trying to get rid of Lieberman as head of his Senate comittee, but who knows how sincere that is and what will happen.  Talk is if Lieberman is openly censored like this, he’ll switch parties.

One of the bright spots this week is the overwhelming kindness and graciousness shown by Bush and his administration.  It is rare for the sitting president of an opposing party to be so gracious so soon.  Good for G,W.

I’m sure Michael Moore is making a documentary on some diabolical conspiracy behind why Bush is being so nice.

Peace.