Ruth Marcus: Comfort Addict

Men of peace sleep soundly at night, because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.—probably not George Orwell, but true nonetheless

Ruth Marcus' current WaPo editorial follows another anti-male (and, by inclusion, anti-Bush) line: Only women are allowed to choose strength, or not; manliness should be denigrated and reviled:

No wimpiness worries now. This is an administration headed by a cowboy boot-wearing brush-clearer, backstopped by a quail-shooting fly fisherman comfortable with long stretches of manly silence -- very "Brokeback Mountain," except this crowd considers itself too manly for such PC Hollywood fare.

How veddy droll of Ms. Marcus. Did you notice the anti-gay slur? Too bad her attempts at character assassination don't stop there.

She goes on:

But the manliness of the Bush White House has a darker side that has proved more curse than advantage. The prime example is the war in Iraq: the administration's assertion of the right to engage in preemptive and unilateral war; the resolute avoidance of debate about the "slam-dunk" intelligence on weapons of mass destruction; the determined lack of introspection or self-doubt about the course of the war; and the swaggering dismissal of dissenting views as the carping of those not on the team.

Back to these old canards: unilateral, weapons of mass destruction, swaggering. Point by point:

• The war was unilateral, only without England, Australia, Norway, Poland, Italy, etc. etc. etc. Marcus' inclusion of "unilateral" is a blatant attempt to include the requisite MSM talking points, hedged with "the right to engage in".
• The claims of WMD have been justified again, and again, and again. Every intelligence service in the world believed Saddam had WMD, including Saddam himself, long before George W. Bush submitted his presidential candidacy papers.
• This "swaggering" President is the most powerful defender Ruth Marcus has against the Islamofascists who would silence her. That swagger has given millions of Iraqis hope, something she can't admit; it would undermine her case too much.

Finally, she begs permission for her nasal whining:

What this country could use is a little less manliness -- and a little more of what you would describe as womanly qualities: restraint, introspection, a desire for consensus, maybe even a touch of self-doubt.

But that's just my view.

The last line might as well read, "It's the best hope jihadis have."

Ruth Marcus is addicted to comfort, subsumed in comfort—to the point that she can't understand why anyone would choose something different. I doubt it has crossed her mind that some choose short-term discomfort, to assure her comfort in her little ivory tower.

Let her choose comfort. Just don't let her require the same of everyone else, especially our defenders.

Posted on Mar 21, 2006 at 5:32:00 PM EST.