Traitorpalooza III: Beyond Chunderdome

Jonah Goldberg takes on those who cry "chickenhawk", very few of which seem to have gone to Bosnia, Somalia, Waco, or other Clinton wars they favored just a few short years ago:

"Cindy Sheehan, the mother of Casey Sheehan, an American soldier who was killed in Iraq . . . "

That's the sentence Cindy Sheehan and her increasingly lugubrious p.r. machine want every news story about her to begin with. Nobody likes the idea of criticizing a woman who's lost her son in such circumstances. The hope has been that the high wall of Mrs. Sheehan's "moral authority" will allow her to say whatever she pleases and that nobody will say boo about it for fear of seeming insensitive to what must be unimaginable anguish. Still, even some of her supporters must realize that her anguish has caused her to find meaning in a wildly partisan, orchestrated publicity stunt.

What's interesting, to me at least, is that Mrs. Sheehan represents simply the latest installment in a long, nasty, desperate ideological campaign — and one that demonstrates the logical limits of identity politics.

Anybody who's been on the receiving end of the "chickenhawk" epithet knows what I'm getting at. Various definitions of chickenhawk are out there, but the gist — as if you didn't know — is "coward" or "unpatriotic hypocrite." The accusation is less an argument than an insult.

It's also a form of bullying. The intent is to say, "You have no right to support the war since you haven't served or signed up." It's a way to get supporters of the war in Iraq, the war on terror, or the president simply to shut up.

FDR didn't fight in WWII. Ditto Churchill. Guess those rousing speeches exhorting us to smash the Hun were great moments in chickenhawkism.

Here's my challenge to the Left:

If you hate the American military so much, if you think they're slaughtering innocents for the sake of oil, if Zarqawi's dirtbag terrorists are latter-day Minutemen, why not put down the latte and go join the "insurgency"?

Chicken?

Then why not go to Crawford at least and defend the hallowed ground underneath Shrew Sheehan's feet?

I spent quite a bit of time in the military, and let me tell you this about it---there weren't a handful of left-wingers on any military installation. When Bill Clinton and company showed up for a rare photo op with the military, they had to make attendance mandatory and invoke UCMJ to keep butts quietly in seats.

The volunteer military is largely a red-state affair, my friends, and that's what makes the chickenhawk cries all the more ridiculous.

George Bush was a fighter pilot. A fighter pilot.

So was his father.

Bob Dole was nearly killed on a WWII battlefield of a similar sort to the one Bill Clinton used his connections to flee, the same man who later took to the simple pleasures of getting a hummer while talking to one of his generals on the phone.

The brave men and women of our armed forces know who supports them and who does not, and Michael Moore won't be packing houses on the USO tour anytime soon.

It takes a lot of courage to stab our soldiers in the back here at home while they're off fighting for us.

If the antiwar Left is so brave, might I suggest they pop on down to the local VFW or NCO club and start spouting off about Bush and Cheney being chickenhawks?

Those soy lattes will go down a lot smoother without teeth to get in the way.