Turning the "Chicken Hawk" Tables

Ya gotta love how Rich Lowry takes the "logic" of the left-wing "chickenhawk" taunt and, to coin a phrase, "skewers its spewers":

Its logic, if taken seriously, actually would boost the hawks. If only members of the military — who are overwhelmingly conservative — were considered competent to decide the nation’s posture on matters of war and peace, we would have an even more forward-leaning foreign policy. I’m comfortable letting the 82nd Airborne decide what we do about anti-American rogue states. Are opponents of the war? I’m guessing that even if you let only mothers of fallen soldiers in Iraq direct our Iraq policy, the result would be stay-the-course rather than the immediate pullout favored by Sheehan.

The chicken-hawk argument is nakedly partisan. During the Kosovo war waged by Bill Clinton and supported by Democrats in 1999, a cry didn’t go up from the Left that no one could support the war unless they were willing to strap themselves into B-2 bombers for the 33-hour ride from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri to Belgrade and back to degrade Serbian infrastructure.

By the same token, we could say to proponents of leaving Saddam Hussein in power: “That’s an illegitimate position unless you yourself are willing to move to Tikrit to live for the duration of Saddam’s regime.” Or to supporters of “containing” Saddam: “You’re a hypocrite until you go help patrol the no-fly zone.” Or to advocates of inspections: “You can’t support them unless you don a baby-blue cap and sniff around his suspected chemical-weapons sites yourself.”

Why should this line of argument be limited to Iraq? “You think we should help fight AIDS in Africa? Well, go work in a clinic in Lavumisa, Swaziland.” “You oppose land mines? Go clear them from the Korean DMZ.” “You think there should be a new U.N. protocol in favor of [insert fashionable cause here]? Then spend interminable hours helping negotiate it yourself.” “Support jobless benefits? Become a clerk at an unemployment office.”

Hey, it's no crazier than The Woman Who Looks Like Prince Charles insisting that if the President is so committed to the war he should "sign up his daughters" even though there's no draft, and the same Mrs. Potato-Head lamenting that she didn't kidnap her son Casey and spirit him away to Canada.

Lowry calls it "juvenile, opportunistic, and irrelevant," and the "'Oh, yeah? Your mama!' of antiwar arguments". I call it the anti-war rhetorical equivalent of unzipping and out-whipping to see whose is longer.

"Small" wonder the President keeps winning that exchange....