The Magical, Mystical Nuke

Robert Scheer flogs Hillary over her fencing with Barack on the use of nuclear weapons:

And what about the dangerous message of Hillary's assault on Obama; "I don't believe that any president should make any blanket statements with respect to the use or non-use of nuclear weapons." Huh? Just exactly how does one make a compelling case to other nations against the proliferation of nuclear weapons when members of the nuke club, particularly the president of the one nation that has killed hundreds of thousands of people with one of these ungodly weapons, will not, at the very least, promise to abstain from first use of a weapon that could quite easily eliminate most life on this planet?

There are two points to be made here. The first is that Hillary, like her husband and her main opponents in the Presidential primaries, has no feel at all for defense issues or the military. She's playing the hawk in her campaign, but the role fits her as poorly as it did John Kerry. It's a shame, because unlike Kerry, Hillary actually has the backbone to be a strong defender of the country. She just doesn't have the interest.

The second point regards nuclear weapons themselves.

Scheer's hyperbolic description of nuclear weapons could have been written by any of a number of liberal pundits. The idea that nuclear weapons are an irredeemably evil tool of mass destruction has become part of the foundation of liberal thinking. More from Scheer:

Back then, she recognized that nuclear weapons are weapons against civilization, not a means of ensuring its survival.

The truth is that nuclear weapons are no more evil than any other weapon in our arsenal, and their effects have been greatly exaggerated. They are less of a "weapon against civilization" than a Kevin Federline CD. They are obviously very powerful and produce radiation, but they are not magical or mystical devices which will poison the earth for all time, leaving us with a humanity mutated beyond recognition and riddled with cancers.

Q. How many survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki subsequently died of cancer as a result of their radiation exposure (1950 - 1990)?
A. 428, or about 10% of cancer victims.

Q. But what about abnormalities among the children?
A. "No genetic effects have been detected in a large sample (nearly 80,000) of offspring. By this, we mean that there is no detectable radiation-related increase in congenital abnormalities, mortality (including childhood cancers), chromosome aberrations, or mutations in biochemically identifiable genes."

This is not to say that nuclear weapons should be used if it can be avoided. I believe that we are all very comfortable with the fact that they have not been used in combat for over 60 years. One hopes that the occasion will never arise where we have to cross the nuclear threshold, if simply to avoid escalation and leave a bargaining chip permanently on the table. But if the occasion ever arises where their use is indicated, I hope we can avoid the hysteria that accompanies liberal discussion of all things nuclear.