YOU CAN LEAD A LIBERAL TO KNOWLEDGE, BUT YOU CAN'T MAKE 'EM THINK

Last night I wrote what I thought at the time was a fairly cogent dianosis of the liberal anti-war psychosis. Having finished, I pushed the button to publish and...nada. Blogger ate it. It was late, so I just signed off after a sigh and went to bed.

But the great thing about blogging is that if I've thought of a cogent way to dissect and understand the liberal mind, chances are someone else has too, and they may have even done a better job at it than I would, or had, whatever.

Such is the case with E.L. Core, who takes on the massive task of understanding what drives the liberal anti-war movement, and the more general lack of enthusiasm for freeing a distant people if a Republican happens to be leading the effort. So go check out his work. It's good stuff.

Here's my shorthand on the subject, after getting into a mild scrape with a liberal just today: They live to let the perfect become the enemy of the good, and when a Republican happens to be doing the good, the perfect is the only outcome a liberal will accept. And then, they probably won't even accept that. Take the war, for instance. It's in a country about 7,000 miles from the US mainland, and thus far we've managed to square our forces up in the suburbs of the enemy capital with light casualties. The enemy hasn't fared so well--they reportedly lost the entire Baghdad division of the Republican Guard today. We're going to win, but like all wars this one has had a snag here and there. Supply lines got stretched a bit, a few officers got uppity toward the civilian leadership (which happens in every war, by the way), and pretty soon the libs predict looming disaster. Has the war gone perfectly? Of course not. Has it gone well, even very well? Absolutely. But the perfect war (an impossibility) is the enemy of the very good war being fought with honor and bravery on our side. Likewise the reasons for the war itself. It's unquestionably about our own self-sefense combined with a very real desire to free a downtrodden people. But the libs didn't suggest this war and can't accept that even though it's being fought for reasons they may otherwise accept, they can't support it fully because the other political philosophy is leading it. It's not perfect so they won't accept it, no matter that its outcome will obviously lead to greater freedom in Iraq and here as well, since we can rest a tiny bit easier about the whole terrorist threat.

But go read Mr. Core's piece. He's right.