Shot in the Dark's hot meme of the moment: "Non-supporters of war are crypto-racists." It's been gathering steam for the last few days, even spilling over into the New Patriot's comments.

"You hate America AND inconvenient yellow/brown people!"

Ernst, this is a one-size-fits-all meme. Anti-war protesters, most prominently Michael Moore, claimed that "killing brown people" was the stated goal of the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Hurts, don't it?

Mr. Blofeld,

The vast majority of the left's references to deaths in Iraq ignore - sometimes only with the aid of Kerri Strug-like logical gymnastics - the considerable number of Iraqis that died at Hussein's hands; the considerable number of Iraqis who are alive today, who would have died at Hussein's hands had he been in power these last two years.

You can call it a sin of omission, or of commission; you can name the sin whatever you want, racism or fuzzy logic or ethical convenience or ethnocentric concern. But at the end of the day, someone's not looking out for their semitic brothers in humanity.

It must be a spandex meme if one size fits Mitch and Michael Moore. And no Hertz Donut, thank you. Just hand me the keys to my rental.

Mitch, please. Call me Ernst.

You needn't back-pedal (on our motives for being in Iraq) so hard. I can give you a ride in my Hertz. We can even go back to the rental agency for a donut.

The Left is truly stuck in a time warp. They were wrong in the 60s and they are still wrong. Even a stopped clock is right eventually. Who knows, maybe the libs will one day be right about something.

Anyone else notice how Ernst Stavro Blofeld makes chiding little remarks without even remotely addressing the point at hand?

I'll now await as Ernst comes up with a pithy comment in response to me, complete with references to "hot meme," "Hertz Donut," and "spandex." I'm sure the results will be FanTAStic.

Ryan: I prefer to keep my points pointed and to leave fisting to the sofas.

Fisking! Sophists!

Ernst,

I, for one, have never backpedalled on motives for being in Iraq. There are four, three of them as good today as they day they were born, one of them spawned by an intelligence error only laid to rest by force of arms.

Pedalling forward, always...

Now I'm stuck with this mental image of Ernst frantically fisting his sofa. Poor sofa.

You're fuzzy on subjects and predicates, Ryan. The sofa's doing the fisting in my typo. Your imagery was apt, however, when I misplaced my mobile phone last week.

Mitch: This crummy conflict was sold effectively on the venal exploitation of our nightmares, not altruism. Try now to sell a war for somebody else's peace and democracy to John Q. Public for $200+ billion and 1,700 dead and you'll find more than half (56% - ABC/WashPo) of America is crypto-racist.

E-Blo,

"This crummy conflict was sold effectively on the venal exploitation of our nightmares, not altruism."

Again with Berg's Law - "no liberal commentator can simultaneously address more than one of the justifications for the war. To do so would invalidate their attack". We had a nightmare - 9/11 - AND a credible belief that Iraq was building WMD (dead, so far) and linking with terrorists (true), that they'd flouted the UN (true), AND were one of the world's worst human rights offenders. Removing Hussein was CLINTON-era policy.

" Try now to sell a war for somebody else's peace and democracy to John Q. Public for $200+ billion and 1,700 dead and you'll find more than half (56% - ABC/WashPo) of America is crypto-racist."

a) But it's not selling peace and democracy...alone.

b) Polls depend entirely on the questions asked. Citing them without linking their methodologym or at least the questions asked, is pointless.