Intellectuals and Religious Warriors

"Ann Coulter is the most high-profile and controversial conservative intellectual on the scene today."

No, this is not a quote from Ironic Times, it is apparently intended as a serious comment by the right wing Human Events, in an advertisement at Townhall.com. Townhall.com is part of the Heritage Foundation and the Heritage Foundation, to paraphrase an old joke, talks only to Bush and Bush talks only to God.

Judging from what I've read of Ann Coulter's writings and emotional outbursts, she may be the missing link between neocon and paleocon conservatism, masquerading as a real conservative. And, as everyone knows, real conservatives are William Buckley conservatives. The difference is not hard to discern. Buckley's intellectual credentials are well known. The weapons he chooses to confront his ideological foes are ideas, not character assassination. While Buckley tosses out erudite tits and tats, Ms Coulter calls for the "for the murder of Islamic heads of state, the invasion of their countries, the forced conversion of their citizens to Christianity, the execution of liberals and a terrorist attack on the New York Times. ?" (Source: Bush Bashers & the Bashers Who Bash Them)

Humor, indeed. Intellectual? Hardly. If this is the best that the conservatives can come up with to defend against the "evils" of liberalism, it may be time for Mr. Buckley to put down his own copy of Pet Goat and return to the political battleground -- not, mind you, to save America from liberalism but to save conservatism from Ann Coulter.

Or to save the GOP from itself. Take the current presidential election campaign, for example:

Republicans' strategy is to counter critique with caricature, and they do it with all the panache of an old Roadrunner cartoon, effectively smashing Kerry with rhetorical frying pans. Read all about it here.

To be fair, though, while there may be a shortage of conservative intellectuals, there is no lack of religious warriors. Remember the infamous General Boykin?

General William "Jerry" Boykin, formerly of Delta Force, the US army’s anti-terrorist unit, was appointed in June 2003 as the deputy undersecretary of defense with responsibility for intelligence. He is an evangelical Christian who once told a congregation in Oregon that radical Islamists hated the US "because we’re a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judaeo-Christian . . . and the enemy is a guy named Satan" (5). On another occasion he said: "We in the army of God, in the house of God, the kingdom of God, have been raised for such a time as this." During the fighting against Islamic warlords in Somalia he had , said: "I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew my God was a real God and his was an idol" (6).
The general offered a few excuses for his utterances, kept his job and was able to use his talents in exporting the prison system created in Guan tánamo Bay to Iraq: we know all about the results of this (7). The US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, defended him at the beginning but the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, then stepped in to say: "This is not a war between religions. No one should describe it as such." How are we supposed to believe that when we read the statements of tortured Iraqis, who were forced to renounce their religion (8)?

You can read the full story in the latest issue of Le Monde Diplomatique by Alain Gresh. En Anglais!

Speaking of Iraq and Bush's own battleground against terrorism, it seems that Kofi Annan had something to say on that subject today. He called America's invasion of Iraq illegal! Besides stating the obvious, Annan did little to enlighten us as to why Bush chose to make Saddam Hussein the cornerstone of his foreign policy, instead of the war against terrorism.

There are several theories. Daniel Pipes, the paleo conservative who writes for the Washington Times and other houses of ill repute, recently put forth his own. Bush did not invade Iraq for oil, he said, nor to help Israel rid itself of a fly in the Middle East ointment, he invaded Iraq because Saddam Hussein turned against his American bosses! Pay back time!

There's another variant on the same theme -- viz. that Saddam tried to kill George W.'s father. Well, whichever it may or may not be, a recent scientific study seems to confirm that revenge is a potent motor in human behavior:

In Dante's Inferno, the inner circle of hell was reserved for
betrayers like Judas and Brutus. But new research indicates that punishing those who break social norms is not merely the province of poets. Scientists have uncovered evidence for an innate satisfaction in human beings for giving people their comeuppance.
Brain Scans Reveal That Revenge Is Sweet

While that may be part of the equation, Harley Sorenson has a slightly more credible argument. Writing in the San Francisco Chronicle, he used the "r" word:

So we invaded Iraq not to save ourselves from weapons of mass destruction, not to rid the world of a brutal dictator and not to avenge the murders of Sept. 11. We invaded Iraq because Bush and his pals think America should rule the world.(Source)

If it weren't so sad and detrimental to the nation and so helpful to radical Islam, it would be amusing to watch the clowns run the White House and play Risk with the world.

During the recent Republican convention, a group of prominent persons discovered another amusing pasttime -- reading the Constitution of the United States out loud. Amusing? Indeed, according to Victor Navasky:

My fear that a simple reading of the Constitution, no matter how accomplished the readers, would fail to entertain the full-house audience turned out to be unjustified. The energetic crowd whistled and whooped and cheered for their favorite passages: the First Amendment (read by Floyd Abrams), the civil war amendments against slavery and guaranteeing the vote (read by Ossie Davis), etc. Betty Friedan got a standing ovation when she recited the Nineteenth, which granted women the right to vote.
They hissed and booed when they heard the line where blacks are counted only as "three fifths of all other Persons," and grumbled during the reading of the National Rifle Association's favorite, the Second Amendment; and they laughed and booed, then cheered, as Prohibition was first incorporated into the Constitution and then repealed. From New York Minutes

A great flame follows a little spark -- Dante Alighieri