A Spork in the Drawer: The Hackiest Generation

Loyal Bushie and Über-Xtian Michael Gerson once again does Fred Hiatt's Crayon Scribble Page proud. his column today is pretty standard-issue Obama-is-dithering-on-Afghanistan and Obama-is-a-narcissist (a criticism I've found to be especially amusing considering the high self-regard of Gerson's former employer) pabulum but at the end he takes an unexpected turn. To wit: Obama should be more like Woodrow Wilson (speaking of narcissism...):

Elected as a progressive reformer, Wilson entered World War I with a deep, liberal reluctance. But he became a wartime leader. "Again and again," he said in 1919, "mothers who lost their sons in France have come to me and, taking my hand, have shed tears upon it not only, but they have added, 'God bless you, Mr. President!' Why, my fellow citizens, should they pray God to bless me? I advised the Congress of the United States to create the situation that led to the death of their sons. I ordered their sons overseas. I consented to their sons being put in the most difficult parts of the battle line, where death was certain. . . . Why should they weep upon my hand and call down the blessings of God upon me? Because they believe that their boys died for something that vastly transcends any of the immediate and palpable objects of the war. They believe, and they rightly believe, that their sons saved the liberty of the world."

Indeed, Wilson became a "wartime leader" (shades of "I'm a war president"). With a vengeance. Wilson suppressed free speech and imprisoned and tortured pacifists and war opponents, including Socialist Party leader Eugene Debs. In addition, Wilson sanctioned the American Protective League, a national proto-Brownshirt movement which not just enforced conformity concerning the war but attacked labor organizers, blacks, and pretty much anyone they just didn't like. (An excellent read on this subject is Ann Hagedorn's Savage Peace: Hope and Fear in America, 1919.)

If one is looking for an authoritarian-minded, self-righteous, and unbending president then look no further than Woodrow Wilson (Gerson's former employer included).

This is Gerson's model president for Obama.

I'll let Gerson's final paragraph stand on its own:

Once a decision is made on Afghanistan, Obama will need a similar transfusion of red corpuscles -- and need to make a similar case. In Afghanistan and other distant places, America's sons and daughters are saving the liberty of the world.