“Ladies and Gentlemen, this is sick and disturbing: they are daring to slander a war hero.”

Who said this, and to whom was he or she referring?

If you would have guessed a democrat discussing the murder of John Kerry’s character during the 2004 presidential election, you’d be wrong.  It was media personality Sean Hannity discussing the democrats’ lambasting of General Petraeus. 

Now, I don’t disagree that the dems have been rough on the general, but Hannity was one of the witch hunters during the burning of Kerry at the stake.  Kerry, a proven war hero, who was slandered beyond belief.  And now Hannity has the gaul to be upset that democrats are “slandering a war hero?”  Are you kidding me?

But that’s not even what bothers me the most today.  It has to do with a caller into his syndicated radio show; a caller who said that liberals are living in a fantasy world and need to re-enter reality.

Hannity of course agreed, and I’d just love to know what exactly reality is.

President Bush spoke last night, and again reiterated his point that we have to help Iraq become a democratic state so that they can become an ally in the war on terror.

Does anyone else see a problem with this?  Wanting a country to be our ally isn’t the problem, but assuming that this brand new, budding state would be a helpful ally is.

Let’s think about this.  They’re going to be a brand new democratic society.  They’re going to be building their government, focusing on their systems, making sure everything is working out.  What are they going to be able to do to help us on the war on terror?  They’re going to have their own problems creating a new country.  That’s not an ally.  That’s just a country that doesn’t hate us.

But beyond that, let’s get to the much bigger problem.  Bush can compare Iraq to the original U.S. colonies as much as he wants, but they are different from us, and we can’t project our traits onto them.  The different groups that make up Iraqis hate each other.  They don’t trust each other.  They have been killing each other for thousands of years.

Do you think that’s just going to go away?

Take a look at the recent Iraqi sharing of oil – that was a great moment.  People that hate each other never want the person they hate to have money, but the shared, they came to an agreement, they worked together.  How long did that last?  It’s already falling apart.

Why?  Because deep in their souls they hate each other.  So what’s going to happen when Iraq is finally a democratic state?  They’re going to think, “Wow, that’s cool, we can vote now.  This is great.  Oh but wait, I still hate this guy, he still betrayed my ancestors, and I need to slit his throat.”

I don’t mean to peg all Iraqis as Neanderthals (not all of them kill each other, sometimes they just make another's life a living hell for being a different part of the same religion), but why do we assume everything is going to be peachy once they’re a democratic state?  Why don’t we assume that as soon as we leave – maybe six minutes later, maybe six months later – the country is going to swirl back into turmoil again?  Why don’t we assume that a group will try to overthrow the president and become a dictator?  Why don’t we assume that the thousand years of hatred and civil war will continue? 

We banded together to form the original 13 colonies, but they aren’t us.  They don’t think like us, they don’t see the world like us.  When are we going to realize that their views and our views are different?

And when is that going to be considered reality, as opposed to the fantasy that Hannity and his callers have absorbed?