Letters to the Editor
-
Tit for Tet?
I wonder if this latest blitz is with a mind toward energizing their Brimstone Base for 2008, since the whole modern Rabid Right arose from about Goldwater in 1964 and beyond, and the shadow of American "defeat" in Vietnam (I use quotation marks because that's how the Right sees it, that we didn't lose, rather than liberals causing America to lose will).
They've always had that Vietnam Syndrome front and center in their minds. It peppered their think tank-cultivated hatespeak in the 70s, and certainly motivated the Reagan "Revolution" of the 80s, and the Bush Doctrine of the 00s (which would appear to be War Without End, Amen).
They're still pissed about Vietnam (especially, oddly enough, all these reactionary chickenhawks who didn't fight it), and want the US to pursue an unapologetically unilateralist and militaristic foreign policy, regardless of outcome, as if pure hubris and imperial saber-rattling can carry the day in this increasingly international, multipolar world.
If ever anything demonstrates how much the GOP doesn't get it, how much the Brimstone Base is out of touch with current events (and given their addiction to Limbaugh and Fox, how can they NOT be?) -- this hearkening back to Vietnam does. Time for regime change at home, big time.