Great post, Glenn. The martyr-warrior complex of the right wing is amusing. The Becks and Steyns all have self images of Roland holding the rear guard, always to be failed by their Charlemagne. Only they forget the pain and bloodshed part.

If they are as committed as I think they are, they should start a neocon version of the Lincoln Brigade. I'm sure they would be welcome to spearhead cracking some tough equally mythic alQaeda cells. Or maybe doing forcible deep recon into Iran.

Republican presidential nominee John McCain embodies this good vs. evil Manichean mindset. It's America vs. the barbarians and the the salvation of the world hangs in the balance.

"I think it's clear that this is now part of a titanic struggle between radical Islamic extremism and Western standards and values," McCain said earlier this year.

This paranoid style of politics will be on full display during our upcoming presidential campaign, and the stakes are high. I don't know how we can survive four or eight more years of this. We've already become a de facto presidential dictatorship, civil liberties are seriously eroded, our standing in the world has plummeted, and we are embarked on endless wars of choice.

Scarred by her inability to repudiate her disastrous vote to enable this war, and a hawk at heart, Hillary Clinton cannot engage this battle.

Perhaps Obama would do better since he has been speaking out against warmongers like McCain and even seems to enjoy engaging them on their home turf, but the outcome of the election, even if he is the candidate, is by no means guaranteed. The highest priority must be to prevent the Republicans from winning the presidency in the upcoming election.

As a psychologist, I find this fascinating.

Yes, maintaining a constant state of threat is exhausting.

Yes, fighting the greatest enemy on earth is exhilarating. There is nothing like a "greater purpose" to energize those psychic batteries.

However, we are also creatures of social comparison. We are hard-wired to scan our social environment to make sure our attitudes are grounded in reality. This is what makes the notion of "inside-the-beltway" so topical: attitudes not grounded in reality become psychologically tenable, since social validation in that particular social milieu abounds. For an individual in isolation, they would either get a clue or be diagnosed as delusional.

So, it follows that "inside-the-beltway" is comparable to mass delusion.

It also provides an explanation for the personal-level denigration that takes place, seemingly more often in the direction of conservatives to liberals. To ensure that one's delusional position is defensible, the source for any contrary positions must not only be denigrated, but pulverized, stomped, urinated upon, and ultimately dismissed. Else, their position may have some shred of validity, and therefore threaten the delusion.

But listening to the authors of these events martyr themselves by claiming that their crusades are "psychologically exhausting" is really too much to bear.

Hmm. I read Steyn’s comment a bit differently:

A lot of Americans are "over" 9/11, and, while the event had a lingering emotional power, the strategic challenge it exposed has not been accepted by much of the electorate.

I didn’t read it that he (Steyn) was psychologically exhausted, but just those “Americans who are ‘over’ 9/11” – which obviously doesn’t include him.

He, of course, has accepted “the strategic challenge it exposed” and that’s why he stocked up on Cheetos and calls for immediate war against Iran, Syria and anywhere Islamofascism rears its ugly head.

The brave and fearless Steyn is always on “code red” – it’s the commone people, the delusional ones who are thinking of capitulating to the caliphate by voting for Obama who are the ones who are psychological exhausted.

Me, I get psychologically exhausted just trying to get through one of Steyn’s harangues. I can’t work up a good “code yellow” anymore.

But that’s just me – unable to face strategic challenges. Heck, I’ve having trouble with my Sunday morning paper.

I didn’t read it that he (Steyn) was psychologically exhausted, but just those “Americans who are ‘over’ 9/11” – which obviously doesn’t include him.

We're saying the same thing. Bearing the burden of the 9/11 fight is "psychologically exhausting." For that reason, only he and a small group of comrades are able to sustain it. Most Americans are too brittle and weak and can't bear the burden.

It's as if they compete to become Supreme Nerds of all history.

It's as if they are wanting to be a Chief Nerd who never grew up.

It's embarrassing to have to tell them how 99% of the world sees them?

If they went to a Easter Parade, attended a Moslem event, or had a Bar Mitzvah....

Or you were unfortunate enough to meet them at a barroom...'Um wear Brooks Brothers suits?

Gads.

And Glenn etc., has to walk over real shy to whisper in the ear, "You left the 'dupe' out...

Shame.

Or you send another reader over to the "tough" boy's table with a glass of raw goat milk...

Gads.

Then you need to tell the GOPS the left shirttail sticks out. The pink socks stink like a skunk...

They will keep us safe by pontificating the enemy to death. Take that, Great Caliphate!

It has always felt strange to me that the right considers irrational fear a sign of strength or bravery, or at the very least, a kind of grim "realism." No measure, no matter how barbaric, despotic, or Orwellian, can ever be questioned, without the questioner being dismissed as either "naive," or more often and more ludicrously, "hysterical."

Therefore, when one assesses risk in a rational manner, based on observable statistics and facts; say, that the small risk of terrorism does not justify torture, gulags, and Big Brother government, the right doesn't merely disagree, but they blow a gasket.

Any belief held so firmly that its adherent cannot allow it to be questioned in any quarter, at any time, because to do so threatens All That is Right and Good, must not be defensible, and is therefore false.

It's as simple as that.