Quick Roundup 50

This "quick" roundup, unlike yesterday's, has lived up to its name!

A Warning from Krauthammer

Charles Krauthammer recently penned a column that contained the following excellent point concerning the six retired generals who have been denouncing the Bush administration and calling for Rumsfeld's head.

... These generals are no doubt correct in asserting that they have spoken to and speak on behalf of some retired and, even more important, some active-duty members of the military.

But that makes the generals' revolt all the more egregious. The civilian leadership of the Pentagon is decided on Election Day, not by the secret whispering of generals.

We've always had discontented officers in every war and in every period of our history. But they rarely coalesce into factions. That happens in places such as Hussein's Iraq, Pinochet's Chile or your run-of-the-mill banana republic. And when it does, outsiders (including the United States) do their best to exploit it, seeking out the dissident factions to either stage a coup or force the government to change policy.

That kind of dissident party within the military is alien to America. Some other retired generals have found it necessary to rise to the defense of the administration. Will the rest of the generals, retired or serving, now have to declare which camp they belong to?

It is precisely this kind of division that our tradition of military deference to democratically elected civilian superiors was meant to prevent. Today it suits the antiwar left to applaud the rupture of that tradition. But it is a disturbing and very dangerous precedent that even the left will one day regret. [bold added]

Great. While most of us are asleep, the Left is undermining something else -- subordination of our military to civilian leadership -- that we seem to take for granted.

I guess Prager will have to shut it, now....

Dennis Prager, whose columns are usually masterpieces of evasion, writes one on a subject I recently blogged here. The other day, I discussed the similarities between today's Left and religion. Prager tries to tackle the question, "Why are so many Jews liberal?" and basically summarizes my whole point, which is that there is no rational basis for choosing any particular religion. He just says so in a more roundabout and serendipitous way.

After simply asserting that Jewish "preoccupation" with "this world" necessarily entails leftism, Prager lays this self-descriptive beauty on us.

Despite their secularism, Jews may be the most religious ethnic group in the world. The problem is that their religion is rarely Judaism; rather it is every "ism" of the Left. These include liberalism, socialism, feminism, Marxism and environmentalism. Jews involved in these movements believe in them with the same ideological fervor and same suspension of critical reason with which many religious people believe in their religion. It is therefore usually as hard to shake a liberal Jew's belief in the Left and in the Democratic Party as it is to shake an evangelical Christian's belief in Christianity. The big difference, however, is that the Christian believer acknowledges his Christianity is a belief, whereas the believer in liberalism views his belief as entirely the product of rational inquiry. [bold added]

So, which is it, Dennis? Are your religion and political views (just) "beliefs", or are you, unlike "many religious people", somehow not guilty of a "suspension of critical reason"? Are your beliefs "the product of rational inquiry"? If so, deomonstrate to me the existence of your God, the lynchpin of your worldview. Oh. I didn't think you could. And since you just admitted that you see no rational basis for your political beliefs, does this mean you'll stop lecturing everyone else about them? Oh. But that would, in and of itself, be rational....

You said it, not me, although I heartily agree.

Why are mushroom clouds not in Tehran's forecast?

Via Thrutch come the following chants from an "Islamic Thinkers' rally" near the Israeli consulate in Manhattan.

The mushroom cloud is on its way! The real Holocaust is on its way!

Islam is the only solution, Islam will dominate the world.

One side in this war has a press that calls a mindless gathering of thugs a "thinker's rally" and leaders who call diplomatic standoffs with two "axis of evil" nations who are developing nuclear weapons a "war". This would be very funny if I weren't on the side which has forgotten that words have meanings.

Visit Thrutch for links to more, including footage. (Note: There is a long intro which cannot be completely skipped before the button Amit Ghate refers to shows up.)

-- CAV