The reason fighting-age chickenhawks stutter and stammer and get testy when asked why they aren't in uniform is that there is no plausible answer other than the honest one, which, for political reasons, they know they cannot say:

"I am a privileged individual who deserves to be privileged because I am better than those who are not. This country's institutions exist to provide a support system that allows me and those of my class to enjoy our well-deserved privileges. That includes the military, which provides a mechanism for my social inferiors to make themselves useful to me. Since my comfort is precisely what they are fighting for, it would hardly make sense for me to join them in their unpleasant endeavors, for which they are better suited in any event."

We don't know anything about what they were doing, but if we knew more, I'm sure we'd approve.

The "difference between Israel and the other nations" is, at least ostensibly, a religious reference rather than a geopolitical one. I am no expert on the Jewish faith, but there is an old, widely recited Jewish prayer that says something like this to God: "Blessed are You who has made a distinction between between light and darkness, between sacred and profane, between Israel and the other nations, between the Sabbath and the six working days..."

I may be corrected by a more devoted Jew than myself (that would be most of them), but I believe that in this context, the "nation of Israel" refers to the Jewish people, and not to the nation-state established in 1948, which the phrase pre-dates. The difference between Israel and the other nations is that the Jews are, of course, the Chosen People, selected by the Lord as the earthly recipients of His Truth, and all the other peoples (nations) are not. If you buy into that stuff.

In this instance, however, because the person saying it is Joe Lieberman, it probably means Nuke Iran. Sigh...

If you're still reading this thread, I'm curious to know what Mr. Pagano wrote that caused you to brand him a "neocon troll."

A Holocaust denier is someone who contends that the Holocaust did not occur, or that its dimensions have been grossly exaggerated. If you are aware of anyone who has postulated a different definition, I'd be interested to know about it.

Per your distinction between "Holocaust deniers" and "Holocaust revisionists," I would say it is a distinction without a difference. Their ends are the same; one group is just a little bolder than the other.

It's really inspiring to know that the Happy Warrior isn't letting his intense suffering dampen the spirits of his mischievous inner child.

I guess they use the term "scholars" to subtly portray themselves as dispassionate academics pursuing knowledge for its own sake and the general betterment of humanity, rather than as agenda-driven political actors. (They are, of course, not to be confused with "professors," who are liberal elites cramming leftist propaganda down the throats of defenseless students.)

As the U.S. was planning to invade a sovereign country that never attacked us and was no threat to do so, kill its people, bomb its infrastructure, destroy its government, install a puppet government, and establish a political system of our choosing, no one could possibly have foreseen that some of the people in that country would not like this and would even oppose our noble efforts. Their only rational response was to greet us with flowers, thank us profusely, and erect statues of George Bush in every public square. That they stubbornly chose not to do so is their own damn fault, and there is no reason why Tiberius' beautiful mind should be troubled by your lying statistics.

Re your "straw man" charge: In the column that Glenn excerpted, Simon wrote, "if we lose and fall under religious law..." I assume that "we" in this context means the U.S. or some collective group that would include the U.S., and that "religious" means "Muslim." What could that possibly be referring to, other than a Muslim takeover of the the U.S.?

The Danish cartoons that were offensive to Muslims do not, as far as I know, have any intrinsic news value beyond the fact that they were offensive to Muslims in some other countries. I recall reading news stories about the matter, and the content of some of the cartoons was described therein, sufficiently to give me the gist of why some folks were offended. To publish them here would be gratuitously offensive, for no purpose other than to offend, as kind of a fuck-you just to show that we can. Given that we Americans are occupying a Muslim country and killing Muslims on a daily basis, the argument that the U.S. trembles with fear at the prospect of offending Muslims seems like a bit of a stretch.

At your behest, I read Simon's whole article, and he makes it clear that he genuinely fears the imposition of Muslim law in the U.S. There's no other interpretation.

Just for giggles, I looked up the San Francisco State incident you referenced. A group of College Republicans stomped on replicas of Hamas and Hezbollah flags as part of a public "anti-terror" demonstration. They were charged by the university, not with "desecrating Allah" (good news; there is still no such charge), but with incitement to violence and creation of a hostile environment. (The flags had "Allah" written on them in Arabic.) You also might have mentioned that the students were cleared of the charges after a university hearing, and that none was punished in any way. In other words, the university disciplinary procees worked, and free speech prevailed. Is this degree of accuracy typical of your anecdotes generally?