But tell me, does the arrogance of that approach sound at all familiar? It should by now; we’ve heard plenty of it over the years, and the latest incarnation (besides Will’s, I mean) surfaced just after the ‘04 election, with the phrase “they (meaning red-state Americans) voted against their own best interests.”

Well, thanks a lot for coming down from the mountaintop to render that enlightened judgment, fellas. And I’se sho’ the soldiers would want to thanks you too for not laughing right out loud at they po’ ign’ant selfs, Marse Will. I take that tone advisedly; liberal condescension reminds me of nothing so much as the old slave-owner’s rationalization that the Negro actually needed slavery because without it, he was too darn stupid to be counted on to come in out of the rain. The difference between that attitude and the one these Lefties are taking with soldiers—and anybody notice how often they refer to these mostly in-their-20s men and women as “kids” or “children,” by the way?—is one only of degree.