Doing a slow burn

I said I was going to start questioning the patriotism of the anti-war Left.

Joel Stein has a column in the LA Times that is astonishing for its honesty, for the anti-war Left doesn't often reveal its true self in public. Stein writes:

I don't support our troops. This is a particularly difficult opinion to have, especially if you are the kind of person who likes to put bumper stickers on his car.
....
But I'm not for the war. And being against the war and saying you support the troops is one of the wussiest positions the pacifists have ever taken — and they're wussy by definition. It's as if the one lesson they took away from Vietnam wasn't to avoid foreign conflicts with no pressing national interest but to remember to throw a parade afterward.

Blindly lending support to our soldiers, I fear, will keep them overseas longer by giving soft acquiescence to the hawks who sent them there — and who might one day want to send them somewhere else.
....
I'm not advocating that we spit on returning veterans like they did after the Vietnam War, but we shouldn't be celebrating people for doing something we don't think was a good idea. All I'm asking is that we give our returning soldiers what they need: hospitals, pensions, mental health and a safe, immediate return. But, please, no parades.

Karl Rove gave a speech last Friday to party activists, and in it he said this:

At the core, we are dealing with two parties that have fundamentally different views on national security. Republicans have a post-9/11 worldview - and many Democrats have a pre-9/11 worldview. That doesn't make them unpatriotic, not at all. But it does make them wrong - deeply and profoundly and consistently wrong.

It's time to stop with the conciliatory gestures. They buy us nothing. Not only are too many on the anti-war Left profoundly wrong, they are unpatriotic.

Michelle Malkin has a post about the Stein column, but she also adds some additional material. She includes a photo of a banner, presumably held up by these patriotic Americans, that says "We support our troops when they shoot their officers."

It is within someone's right to disagree with President Bush's policy in Iraq. It is not unreasonable to be against war.

But when you follow the phrase "I'm not advocating that we spit on returning veterans like they did after the Vietnam War" with the word "but", you are implicitly acknowledging that is precisely what you seem to be implying, and you want to absolve yourself of taking responsibility for that kind of sentiment.

A patriot is one who is committed to defending and upholding his or her country's values. A patriot is an advocate for his or her country's best interests.

How is someone who holds up a banner such as the one mentioned above a patriot by any definition? How is someone who says troops deserve no recognition for freeing a country from a brutal dictator a patriot by any definition.

They're not patriots. They are small minded, hateful people who recoil from adhering to noble values larger than themselves because they themselves hold to no ethical or moral standards.

And the GOP and we conservatives should not shrink from pointing it out.

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Hugh Hewitt interviewed Stein on his radio show. (Transcript courtesy of the Radioblogger.) I give Stein credit for coming on the air with Hugh, but this wasn't even close. Hugh just kept feeding Stein the rope, and Stein just kept wrapping it around his neck, until he tossed it over a limb and finally kicked the horse himself.

HH: Joel, do you know anything about the U.S. military? I mean, in a really serious way, the way that you know about like...

JS: No. I told you right away I don't.