Gum Disease can be stubborn and recurring. However, you can learn

Murtha was advocating retreat. Murtha was telling the Iraqi people that once again the US was going to leave them to the tender mercies of Baathists and terrorists. George Bush senior did that to the Shi’ites after the first Gulf War. That was shameful then. If his son follows Murtha’s advice, it will be even more shameful now, after so much sacrifice.

What disgusts me is that the Democrats have proven they want to defeat George Bush at any cost. They could care less about the tens of thousands of ordinary Muslims that have died at the hands of the radicals. Contrast that with Tony Blair, who is very left-of-center by US standards. Yet, he has had the courage to recognize the threat the West faces from terrorists and their sponsors, and do something about it.

We have close friends and relatives who are against the war. They are sincere and we respect their position. But their ignorance of what Saddam had done, and what radical Islam wants to achieve, is unbelievable. A politician with access to the intelligence provided by the FBI, CIA, DIA, DOD and State Department has no such excuse.

“Point” now = “polemical thrust.”

And whenever I post a piece like this, trying to understand and explain someone I fundamentally disagree with, I get accused of trying to advance that person’s position.

I don’t want anyone to submit to Islam. But I think Murtha is an honorable man. I think he deserves some respect. Henry Hyde and Curt Weldon think the same way, based on what they said on the House floor tonight. And neither of them is beating the gong for retreat from Iraq.

I don’t think his idea is a good one, but I think I can understand how a decent man can come to feel as he does, given his experience in life. I can step outside my own patterns of conviction long enough to appreciate him in his.

I think it’s possible to both respect him and think him wrong. Is that so fucking difficult for most people to accomplish anymore?

Period. End of “point.”

An online friend wrote to me recently asking whether he thought the current level of talking-past-one-another in U.S. politics was something like that which prevailed before the Civil War (about which he knew I had written a few books). I told him I didn’t think it was quite that bad, though in some ways it is much worse.

How do the US troops react. They stop fighting and wait to get home. How does Hitler react? Would unabashed joy be too facile?

Only someone wanting to convert to Islam or live in Dhimmitude would want to follow Murtha and his friends. Me, I’d rather die than submit to Islam.

Maybe the newspaper and TV reporting got to him. Certainly the behavior of the politicians in the Bush Administration had a lot to do with it. According to the AP, “Several times a year, Murtha travels to Iraq to assess the war on the ground, and sometimes he just calls up generals to get firsthand accounts.� I hope he remembers that what goes on in the battle zone, among the men and women serving and fighting, is just as real as the politics.

And what was the nearest reference to “politics” before that line you so object to? “… behavior of the politicians in the Bush Administration.”

Soldiers in battle or near to it typically don’t have much time or patience for political jockeying back home. But it can infuriate those of us who aren’t under fire, and to us it can overshadow the daily realities of the front-line troops. And for a veteran Marine who both loves and cares about the men in uniform, and deplores the politics of the people who are leading the country in war, I can imagine, watching the war from over here can be exasperating beyond endurance.

If that’s too tough, just skip this and go read something you agree with. What we have here is failure to communicate. Americans don’t even speak the same language anymore. You’re reading between lines I didn’t even write.

The point of the post? How about an attempt to explain Murtha to the kind of people who are going to jump all over him without taking the time to understand where he’s been and how he might end up at this place. You can see for yourself, there’s no shortage of them.

I don’t know about Murtha, what moved him to switch his position in such a public way. Pennsylvania has had more than its share of casualties: over 100 so far. And because of the structure of National Guard units, they tend to come in clusters � seven from one community, five from another, all in the same ambush. That hurts.

And I hope he’s had a chance to talk not just to generals but to the many men and women serving in Iraq who declare they want the U.S. to stay and finish the job it started. And I hope he’s had time to read some of the fine account now being written about the superb fighting being done by America’s men and women in uniform, like Bing West’s “No True Glory,� about the Fallujah battles.

All these veiled questions “hoping” he’s done certain things… am I meant to get anything but a strong implication that you’re saying he has gone down the path of civilian softies and ignored the “insights” of West and the realities of military life.

And what am I meant to get from the statement in bold except an implication that he’s forgetting military life and just politiking?

Nobody has absolute moral authority; where did I say anyone did? Nobody on my side, nobody on your side. Nobody.

(Re-reads my post) Nope, I didn’t claim that you claimed that anyone has absolute moral authority. No disagreement here. My comments about degrees of moral authority were directed to the tactic of attempting to discredit individuals rather than arguing their points. And I can’t see the point of this post beyond impliedly attempting to discredit Murtha by linking him with a bunch of civilian softies who “don’t get it”.

Murtha has been defense friendly for the pork it delivered to his district. But he was a waverer and wobbler and appeaser 18 months ago. All I know is if Murtha gets his wish and the US surrenders in Iraq then Bin Ladin will be able to tell the Muslim masses he defeated both superpowers. That would do wonders for his recruitment stats.

It’s not that he changed his mind that is baffling, its that he advocates a dim-witted and obviously dangerous strategem: Complete, immediate withdrawl. Kerry, Biden, and every other mind-changer never defined their antiwar positions in such terms.

A seasoned Vietnam war vet should know the costs of pre-mature cutting and running. The massacres of the south-vietnamese, and the cambodian holocaust come to mind.

Sorry, you can’t have it both ways all the time. Time to put up or shut up… wait a minute… that requires honor. The Dems will vote to stay put, but demand we withdrawal. As Dan Rather would say… COURAGE!!!

Sucks to have a “political stunt� pulled on you, doesn’t it? Sleep tight keyboard warriors…

I compared Murtha to Butler, not to the editors. I wonder if maybe the editors haven’t had an effect on him.

Nobody has absolute moral authority; where did I say anyone did? Nobody on my side, nobody on your side. Nobody.

Nobody here accused Murtha of playing politics. Clearly politics are being played. I believe Murtha is sincere, and I said so.

Learn to read. It will help, I promise.

You’d have accepted Murtha as a strong moral authority on the war if he remaind in favour of it. He comes out for an immdediate withdrawal, though (a position I don’t agree with) and suddenly he’s lost it, he’s like those wishy washy MSM editors who don’t respect the dudes on the ground. Why can’t you acknowledge that it’s valid for someone who actually knows the cost of war to go “enough, that’s enough, this war is no longer worth it” without implying that his lost his perspective, that he’s become a civilian softie? And you accuse him of playing politics to boot.

Why can’t we have political disagreement, disagreement about the moral worth of actions without personalising everything? Why need you imply that Murtha has lost his perspective and moral authority on this question for you to still make a perfectly valid argument against withdrawal? i realise you didn’t come close to a smear job here, but this is really the same thing, the pointy/respectible edge of the same wedge.