Passion & Conviction Don't Make You Right

I've been watching some of the Republican Convention, specifically Schwarzenegger and Zell Millers' speeches. I'm struck by the passion. And by the anger.
Passion and conviction don't make a person right. Zell Miller was angry last night. Scarily so. He seems to believe that we need a tough man's man in the White House and that that man's man is George W. Bush. Schwarzenegger would have us believe that Democrats and John Kerry are "girlie men". Macho. Decisive. Talking tough. This is how a man handles himself, they'd have you believe. Never admit mistakes. Never look back at your actions and admit when you're wrong. That's weakness. That's being a "girlie man".
Republicans are MEN. They're not liberal and weak and "girlie men". Here's the problem. Being tough and macho and never admitting mistakes doesn't make you right. It makes you arrogant. Our government not allowing families of slain military soldiers to meet their loved ones caskets at the airport doesn't mean that Americans in Iraq and Afganistan aren't dying...it just means that film of their bodies coming home to America doesn't make the nightly news. Winning the PR battle seems more important than acknowledging that every day families in America are losing loved ones. Pretend it doesn't exist and - it doesn't exist.
Real human beings are losing their lives and being maimed daily due to this MANLY campaign in Iraq. And why? Was Iraq the greatest threat to the United States in the world? Of course not. That would be North Korea, a nation with nuclear (or "nucular" if you're President Bush) weapons. They are a nation who has defiantly told us they will use them against us. Why didn't President Bush have a MANLY, punch them in the face response to North Korea? Is he being a "girlie man"? Is he being like France? Or is it because his daddy & his daddy's buddies didn't fail in a prior effort to unseat North Korea's dictator and sport a raging mad-on for twelve years about it?
George W. wants to be like his dad and, like all sons, he wants to be better. That's a normal male response. But he's failed at every turn. At Yale where he seems to have been admitted as a legacy, he was a mediocre student, falling far short of his bright father. While his father served honorably in WW II as a navy combat pilot, George W. avoided Viet Nam and as a National Guard fighter pilot, he kept the skies safe over South Texas. In the oil business, he could not duplicate his father's success, instead losing money and having to be propped up by his father's wealthy friends. Finally, in politics, he has found an area in which he can supercede his father. His father failed in Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein. And so, even before September 11th, George W. and his staff filled with his father's friends were making plans for the U.S. to go back into Iraq. At last, George W. could find something to do better than his father. I won't say that Iraq and the world aren't better without Saddam and his evil sons. We are, of course. I would, however, question why in the entire world, they marked Iraq as the worst threat. North Korea, anyone? The Sudan? But wait - daddy didn't fail there and those other places have no oil.
Invading and occupying a country that hates us more and more every day is not a MANLY pursuit. Being angrier and louder and questioning your opponents manhood doesn't make you right. Not ever admitting mistakes...thinking your way is the only right way...doesn't mean you aren't making mistakes. It just means that you don't have the opportunity to learn from the mistakes you are making. In this case, the mistakes of George W. are costing Americans their lives and health every day as we entered Iraq with no plan for how to exit Iraq. But he did get Saddam out and that's something his daddy couldn't do. Finally, the son has one upped the dad. Was it worth the price we continue to pay?
...DC Coyote...