Goldberg Gives Indignant Ranting a Good Name

As an east-coast conservative of the second generation, Jonah Goldberg has by necessity learned and practiced much patience.

But today he lost it. And he should have

Yesterday the WaPo ran an article claiming that the Iraqi government was considering limited amnesty to insurgents, something that governments often do to end internal strife (recall, for instance, Lincoln's second inaugural address: "With malice toward none, with charity for all ...").

But that's not the cause of Goldberg's rage. What blew his stack was the parade of Ds, having for months called for an unconditional and immediate retreat from Iraq, who expressed outrage that the blood of US soldiers would be dishonored by such a move.

So here are a few of Goldberg's artfully and rabidly indignant words of rejoinder:

Look: Bugging out of Iraq is the greatest amnesty possible because it’s the only way the men who’ve shed American blood can not only get off scot-free but actually win the war. But that is precisely what Democrats want to do. These guys talk about how the sacrifices of American troops would be “devalued” by amnesty, but they see no devaluation of such sacrifice in surrender. They say they don’t want to “reward” those who spilled American blood through amnesty.
But amnesty is the consolation prize. It is the set of steak knives and coupon to Chuck E. Cheese’s of rewards. Chasing the infidel American crusaders out of Iraq is the jackpot. And that is precisely what the Democrats are for.

This sanctimony is so dishonest it stews the bowels. Most of these Democrats have denounced America’s decision to disband the Iraqi military after the toppling of Saddam. Those Iraqis fired on Americans and now they comprise the bulk of the insurgents. These Democrats wanted to keep many, if not most, of the same fighters in uniform and give them the color of authority in Iraq — not send them off to be ditch diggers and taxi drivers under some amnesty plan. They wanted them to command troops!

As it turns out, the WaPo got it wrong. There's no amnesty plan.

But there's even less of a plan of any kind among the Democrats for the prosecution of the war. If anything proves that, their performance on this matter does.