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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated
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To: MSI who wrote (14929)11/2/2003 8:18:44 PM
From: LindyBill  Read Replies (1) of 794335
 
Volokh comments on another Dowd charge. She knows better than this, but just can't stop the venom.
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"she also criticizes the president for not attending memorial services. This is one of the more bizzare things I have ever seen the president accused of. Presidents in a time of war do not go to individual soldiers' funerals as a matter of course. It would be utterly inappropriate. To even think he should is suggestive of the kind of wallowing in grief and loss that the media would like to engender, but which is impossible for a nation at war. Memorial services happen because for each family with a loss, every loss is unspeakable tragedy. But for the nation it is honored sacrifice that is accepted (in both senses) as part of the larger effort. To have the president wallow in the loss of each soldier as a member of a family's particular universe, rather than as a member of the national fabric, cannot happen while the nation is participating in a military effort that demands that sacrifice of some of it's people (volunteers, remember.)"

A nation at war takes losses. It is what makes war ugly, it is what makes war so ultimate a choice. But it is part of what war is. That is not a refusal to appreciate the tragedy of those losses -- it is because these are people who accept this risk on all our behalfs that we so honor their falling. But if the issue becomes only the fact that we are losing soldiers, and what that loss means to their families as opposed to the nation, then fighting war becomes impossible. Surely there are those who would find that an acceptable outcome. But if you believe there are evils in the world, and threats to American security, that can only be dealt with through military power, than this is what the world is.

volokh.com
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