When right is wrong ... what to do?

When you’ve lost an election because the voters rejected your candidates’ failures and lack of vision, what do you do? When your Democratic political opponents are being more persuasive every day, what do you do? When opposition to the war/occupation in Iraq swells into the streets, if you’re a Republican who wants to blindly stay the course with Bush’s policy -- no matter what it is -- what do you do?

If you are a determined rightwinger, a never-say-die supporter of the neoconservative notion that America’s richest corporations know best how to rule the world -- and that America’s military ought to be used to impose that notion on any resisters -- what do you do about all those problems listed in the first paragraph?

Well, it looks like we have recently been seeing what the ever-shrinking huddles of determined war-mongering rightwingers who also believe global warming is a myth will do -- they will just make up stuff out of thin air and rally around that, ahem, stuff.

So, in the last week we were told that Bush-supporters needed to go to DeeCee to protect the Vietnam War Memorial from being vandalized by anti-war protestors who would be in town for a march.

If their message is too strong to deal with, then go after the messengers.

So, to muddy the water around what are widely regarded as legitimate concerns about the environment, we continue to see Al Gore ridiculed personally for imaginary transgressions he has wrought on the ecology.

If the message is too strong to deal with, then attack the messenger.

We routinely see Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama ridiculed personally, in much the same fashion, simply because they are popular Democrats. We’ve even seen Ann Coulter’s “faggot” remark, which was directed at John Edwards, defended by the faithful on the extreme right side of the blogosphere. As well, we’ve seen Edwards attacked for being successful/wealthy while he champions the cause of the underprivileged.

Given the revelation today, to do with Elizabeth Edwards’ health, how many hours do you suppose it will be before we see John Edwards attacked for being a power hungry guy who would not quit his campaign to stay at home with his wife who has cancer?

I can tell you this -- veterans my age aren’t reacting well to the shameless way the Vietnam War Memorial and the names on it were abused -- strictly for partisan lowroad politics -- by the pro-war demonstrators.

But when the same sort of virulent pro-war activists are willing to call decorated Vietnam War era veterans “cowards” if they speak out against a miserably failed foreign policy, then we should not be surprised when they invent a threat to the universally cherished Vietnam War Memorial. That’s just what they do...