Chickenhawks Again?
The left seems to love the chickenhawk BS; it comes up all the time. Cheney's a chickenhawk, Bush is a chickenhawk, Rush Limbaugh and George Will are chickenhawks.
What is a chickenhawk? In its simplest formulation, it's somebody who's hawkish on war, but doesn't want to go to war himself (or herself these days). Of course, it's generally a little more complicated than that. Cheney could not go to war if he wanted to; he's too old and has a bad heart, not to mention that he's got a more critical role to play in the chain of command. So liberals have to resort to a little sleight of hand to make him into a chickenhawk. Cheney's a chickenhawk because he supports the war in Iraq even though he himself did not go to Vietnam.
Of course, there is an obvious problem with that; suppose Cheney himself opposed the war in Vietnam but favored the war in Iraq? Suppose he opposed the war in Vietnam as a young man, but later came to see it as necessary? I have seen none of the folks railing on about Cheney as chickenhawk bringing up any statements of his about Vietnam other than the comment that he "had more important things to do at the time".
So let's just take it for granted that liberals think that nobody should send our troops to war who hasn't seen combat himself or herself. I don't agree with it, but it seems to proceed logically from the chickenhawk formulation as applied to Cheney. But follow the logic a step further. If nobody should send our troops to war who hasn't seen combat, then isn't it fair to say that nobody should be President who hasn't seen combat? After all, the President has to have the authority to send troops into combat.
Of course, liberals would be happy to agree to this now, since it appears that they are going to nominate a veteran to run against Bush. The real test will be 2008. I look forward to all the posts from liberals saying that they could never support Hillary for President because she never served.
