Straw Men

Isn’t it adorable how the wingnut mind can make straw men out of straw men and then extrapolate those straw men out to alarming and counter-intuitive conclusions? Consider how Stephen Green of Instapundit turns political opposition to George Bush into an “impending liberal military coup”:http://vodkapundit.com/archives/008789.php:

bq. First, the Left used the “chickenhawk” argument to claim that only active-duty soldiers could venture any opinions on war.

Actually, “chickenhawk” is an insult, not an argument, and it’s generally intended aimed at people gung-ho about armed conflict as long as they don’t have to be in the front lines. No one I know has _ever_ suggested only active-duty soldiers are allowed to have an opinion. It’s one thing to support a war even if you’re not likely to be in it; it’s quite another to practically drool over the prospect.

bq. Now the Left is filled with glee because we have a clique of generals dissing their elected civilian commander-in-chief.

“Glee” is probably not the right word. “Justified” probably is. And we’re not feeling justified because of generals “dissing” the President. It’s because the Generals are saying what we suspected was true all along: things are a mess, and it’s the fault of an overly optimistic and fantasy-based civilian leadership refusing to listen to the subject-matter experts.

If the Generals were saying Bush is ugly and his mother dresses him funny, _that_ would be dissing, and _that_ would be inappropriate. But saying Bush is a pointy-haired boss unmoored from reality meshes pretty well with what we’ve observed and the results on the ground, and is fair criticism.

bq. It’s enough to make you ask if the Left is preparing this country for a military dictatorship.

Is it really enough? That seems like a leap to me. Especially considering all the sitting right-wing President has done to prepare the country for a military dictatorship. You know, like the Patriot Act, suggesting dissent is treason, extending survelience to the citizenry without judicial oversight, promising to ignore the laws of Congress when it suits him, incarcerating American citizens without charging them or giving them access to legal council, and otherwise pushing the concept of the “unitary executive” well into authoritarian territory?

That kind of pales next to cheering because some retired General is willing to tell the truth. If that’s how low Stephen sets the bar, he must think Bush has us already 99% of the way to becoming Pakistan.

??Via “Sadly, No!”:http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/002628.html??