Straw men at the front

The Weekly Standard's Jonathan Last complains that our two baby boom presidents have been "exceedingly imperfect," and that this is the result of their draft dodging and TANG documents. Sort of. Funny. Some of us were saying something similar in suggesting that perhaps John Kerry's (and Al Gore's) life experiences made him a better candidate to lead the country in a time of war. And all he got for his sacrifice were purple band-aids.

The Weekly Standard continues its proud tradition of inconsistency and intellectual dishonesty.

The best part of the piece is the scary conjuring of 1930s British liberals and warning that, like the end of the British empire, the U.S. (he does not use "empire," oddly) is in danger from squishy peace lovers. Strange, I do not recall too many of us calling for unilateral disarmament or appeasement with Osama "What's His Name," even if we're not quite ready to conflate "the war with Islamist extremists" with the building of German u-boats and panzers.

The liberal opponents of the British Empire were proved wrong, but their misplaced disillusionment was enough to sap the vitality of imperial confidence. After rising one last time to fight Nazism, the sun set on the British Empire.

Likewise, it is pleasant to believe that the crisis of confidence in today's liberal elites won't affect the outcome of our war with Islamist extremism. The greater worry concerns what happens next. Will protestations of liberal elites become mainstream diffidence about America's place in the world? Will we, too, stop believing that America stands firm, as a great force for good - and then see our place in the world diminish?

It isn't the "liberal elites" (who are...whom, exactly?) that are diminishing our place in the world, it's that little detour to the Tigris and Euphrates we've taken on the road to al Qaeda that is doing that quite nicely, thank you. As for America "as a great force for good," that position grows less tenable when you throw in a little state sponsored torture, complaints about which enrage Mr. Last so.