Left Rudder

There exists a purple-prosed gasbag who would cite both Jean-Francois Revel and Mark Steyn in his attempts to vilify Rep. John Murtha (D-PA). Amazing.

Revel was a hero to the extreme rightwing; in his 1982 book, How Democracies Perish, he tried mightily to make the case that the soft, decadent and liberal West could not hope to preserve democracy against the cold, disciplined, and determined ‘enemy at the gate.’ Revel cites France in WWII and Vichy France, in particular. He then tried to apply it to the Cold War.

Big mistake. In point of fact, Revel’s thesis was deader than a doornail before his book had a chance to hit the bargain bins at Books-A-Million. The Soviet Union imploded about 5 years after Revel’s masterwork.

Does this fact stop Neptunus Laevus? Hell, no. He then goes on to cite Mark Steyn, high school dropout, disk jockey, musical theater columnist and, of course, the new rightwing Kissinger. Who can forget how correct Steyn was shortly after the invasion of Iraq?

This war is over. The only question now is whether a new provisional government is installed before the BBC and The New York Times have finished running their exhaustive series on What Went Wrong with the Pentagon’s Failed War Plan. . . .

[T]hese are the death throes: the regime was decapitated two weeks ago, and what we’ve witnessed is the last random thrashing of the snake’s body. . . .

[F]or everyone other than media naysayers, it’s the Anglo-Aussie-American side who are the geniuses. Rumsfeld’s view that one shouldn’t do it with once-a-decade force, but with a lighter, faster touch has been vindicated, with interesting implications for other members of the axis of evil and its reserve league.

Wow.

But somehow, some way, John Murtha is to blame according to Neptunus Laevus. What that way is–isn’t exactly clear. Neptunus Laevus tends to run low on the hot air after citing his ideological heroes. In the end, Neptunus Laevus castigates Murtha for not appreciating the threat that is posed. But not a word of George W.’s role in this mess is spoken.

Also left unspoken by Neptunus Laevus is why he believes there exists such a threat to the world posed by Muslims. And why this threat must be addressed via force. After all, the great threat of the Soviet Union was eliminated by deterrence and the power of our freedoms. Neptunus Laevus rejects what has worked in favor of that which has not.