Friday, June 01, 2007

Some advice ...

This is about the second or third time that Mark has referenced Rod as a regretful supporter of the Bush administration. If I recall correctly, Rod hasn't supported Bush since at least Hurricane Katrina (nearly two years ago) and he had already broken with him on foreign policy before that.

Mark also says this:
n the same way, the visceral forces of love of home unleashed by 9/11 seem to me to still be quite potent. No small part of the disaster of Bush is that he has misdirected these forces into this stupid war of choice. But I can think of few people I know who think that we should just call off the war with Radical Islam on the theory that America is now safe from the Bronze Age Nutjobs. So I don't envision some crazy pacifism. Indeed, the *reason* the troops are admired is that people recognized they *do* stand on a wall and protect us--provided dunderheads at the levers of power don't send them off on damn fool nation-building projects based on the theories of the End to Evil types. I think Americans recognize we are in a serious war with Radical Islam. What they doubt is that the bog of Iraq is advancing our cause in that war.

Given where he lives, I expect he could probably find more than a few people who believe that any threat from radical Islam is completely overblown - assuming they would even acknowledge that it existed in the first place. I would also be interested in hearing what Mark would do to advance the cause of the war. Thus far, that seems to be limited to some type of massive troop influx into Afghanistan (which I'm not entirely sure would be a good idea, beyond bolstering our forces to support the inevitable NATO withdrawl from the southern provinces). That is a slogan, not a strategy, however.

When Mark is confronted with these types of issues, he generally remains silent or notes his own ignorance in matters of military and geopolitical affairs. Which would be fine, except he seems quite willing to rail against neoconservatives in terms reserved in the Catechism for the Antichrist. I for one would be very interested to hear his thoughts on how a Truly Faithful Catholic(TM) would defeat radical Islam.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Regarding Rod, I wonder how many times a person can portray himself as a disillusioned Bush supporter. You would think that, after his NPR commentary in January, he wouldn't be able to get anyone's attention by repeating the same schtick ("the mendacity") in June.

Anonymous said...

This Gives Me the Willies

Georgie Ann Geyer on the Most Powerful Man on the Planet:

Friends of [the president's] from Texas were shocked recently to find him nearly wild-eyed, thumping himself on the chest three times while he repeated "I am the president!" He also made it clear he was setting Iraq up so his successor could not get out of "our country's destiny."

Labels: Stupid Party

posted by Mark at 7:54 AM

Anonymous said...

``... Friends of [the president's] from Texas were shocked recently...''

Well gee, it's in the paper so it must be true, mustn't it?

/s

Joseph D'Hippolito said...

To "anonymous" (or Mark Shea or whoever you are), I saw the same comment on Rod's thread. Someone named CPA said that the sources were unidentified friends of Bush, which diminishes in his mind the credibility of the comments.

One thing to note about Geyer, which Rod himself admits: She's very hostile toward Israel. That doesn't make her anti-Semitic. However, her commentary on the Middle East should be seriously questioned because those who are hostile toward Israel are less hostile toward the Arabs or Islam (cf, Pat Buchanan). Indeed, Buchanan supports the Arabs and Muslims as a counterweight to Israel.

As far as Mark's comments are concerned, he's merely talking out of both sides of his mouth because he (like Rod) refuses to confront the consequences of their positions.

Pauli said...

As far as Mark's comments are concerned, he's merely talking out of both sides of his mouth because he (like Rod) refuses to confront the consequences of their positions.

A common problem in the world of laboratory political punditry and industiralized journalism. Why would they confront the consequences of their positions? Would that increase their readership? Would they be comfortable with the conclusions? Would it tie in with the current enemies list? You see, there are no incentives to deal with such inconveniences.