Begala: Larry Northern's a thug (and why this movement will succeed)

[Rose Siding]

http://www.tpmcafe.com/author/begala

It seems to me the American people never really forgave the Democrats for being right about Vietnam.
The left was right, of course, about Vietnam. Even my CNN colleague Bob Novak, who was extraordinarily hawkish on Vietnam, now admits America should have pulled out years before we did.
...
One of the grave sins of the anti-Vietnam War movement was, I think, a conflation of the conflict with the combatants. Instead of focusing their fire and their ire on the commander in chief, too many liberals wound up blaming the conscripts who so bravely fought Mr. Nixon's war....
....
It seems to me the new anti-war movement has learned these lessons well. And it is the pro-war right that is repeating the mistakes of the past.

For me, one of the most incendiary moments of the entire Bush war in Iraq occurred when a right-wing thug ran his pickup truck over hundreds of crosses bearing the names of heroic Americans killed in Iraq. He also took out scores of American flags in the process. Police say the perp is Larry Chad Northern, a Waco real estate agent and gun nut. Mr. Northern is, of course, entitled to the presumption of innocence, despite the fact that the local sheriff's office says Ol' Larry was spotted at 9:30 Monday night changing a tire on his pickup truck. Citing sheriff's office reports, the Waco Tribune-Herald, reported that, "Small white crosses were found stuck in the truck's undercarriage."

Nice, Larry. Real Nice.

http://www.tpmcafe.com/author/begala

I don't enjoy seeing that broad characterization of that other anti-war movement, but he does qualify the negative aspect that saddled it with "too many liberals wound up blaming the conscripts". The point about how this time we are able to sustain a widely accepted moral authority is well taken...

[wicket]

1. kick

:kick: