Obedient Corpses for Bush?

By Nicholas Stix The 2000th American serviceman has died in Iraq, but the talking points are full of life. My colleague, J. Grant Swank, Jr. just wrote a defense of George W. Bush, arguing

The far-left ‘Progressives’ rarely get reality. This is one of those significant historical moments when they really don’t get reality. The plain truth is that if these 2000 brave servicemembers — as well as many more yet to willingly lay down their lives — did not see through their commitment to the military, the Islamic killers international would romp about New Iraq, taking all into bloodbath maximum. Then they would move on to neighboring countries, particularly laying low every freedom-based nation for Allah’s sake.”

And what would those “freedom-based nation[s]” be? Kuwait? Saudi Arabia? Swank writes, “It surely is not a day to call it quits in New Iraq, though this evening’s major networks proclaimed as much with their showing of caskets after caskets. That story in itself was a slap in the face to every body lying in those caskets, though the liberals continue to be so unreal as not to realize it.” With all due respect to Grant Swank, I fail to see how showing caskets is a slap in the face to the soldiers, Marines, sailors and airmen in them. Would it be more respectful to the dead to hide their caskets and their names? As I’ve previously written, Pres. Bush’s prosecution of the war in Iraq appears to be governed by multicultural cowardice and confusion. But I could be wrong. The apparent confusion and cowardice could just be a façade hiding the false sophistication of a man who, in playing too many angles and trying to fake out everyone, is too clever by half. Pay me no mind. For all you know, I may just be a sleeper who spent 25 years attacking Marxists as a front, just waiting for the right moment to sink my red sickle deep into the heart of the patriotic, running-dog capitalists, on behalf of the communist New Internationale. Pace Lawrence Auster, overheated rhetoric cannot compensate for Pres. Bush’s current malaise. Blind obedience to Mr. Bush has little value for our fighting men or our nation. There was a time when I would have written "for him" between "fighting men" and "nation," but I no longer give a good goddamn about the welfare of George W. Bush. I just want to limit the harm he may do to my country, and cheerleading for him is the last thing that will achieve that. Bruno Bettelheim once wrote about the concept of the "gehorsame Leiche" (“obedient corpse” – a man so subservient, that he resembled a zombie more than he did a living human being), that was operative in the Imperial Army of Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm II in World War I. But free men are not “obedient corpses,” and George W. Bush is not the Kaiser. To paraphrase George S. Patton Jr., American boys should not be “willingly lay[ing] down their lives,” but willingly laying down the enemy's life. Since having recently concluded that George W. Bush lacks all integrity, I'm no longer willing to give him the benefit of the doubt … in anything. And I'm sure as heck not willing to sacrifice the lives of American fighting men for the sake of talking points, or so as not to lose face in front of Leftists.