What John said was this: "[Romney's] apology is owed to the young men and women serving this nation in uniform, that we will not let them down in hard times or good. That is who the apology is owed to."
It so happened that when I read that I had just put down a marvelous new work on military history: Mark Perry's Partners in Command, an investigation into the working relationship between Generals George C. Marshall and Dwight D. Eisenhower. And the meticulously driven subtext of Perry's work is that both of these incisive military minds and, later, shapers of America's foreign policy, would have been appalled -- absolutely aghast -- at the United States' entry into Iraq.
Both would have left aside the question of apologies, because both, quite simply, would have found the intervention utterly inexcusable -- a betrayal of America's political culture, societal way of thinking, and even common sense.
John McCain -- as that rare political creature, a Republican pol who actually served -- now presents himself as a thoughtful student of military history as well, and therefore as exceptionally qualified to be commander in chief. But Mr. McCain, in rooting for this idiotic war at the start and now advocating an interminable presence, understands nothing of what the true giants of yesteryear understood.
It is John McCain who owes an apology to "the young men and women serving this nation in uniform," for having helped, that is, to spearhead their voiceless entanglement in a lonely and endless war of choice -- one that would have appalled those far deeper thinkers of how and when military means should be used, and how they should not.
I've got nothing to add to that, other than I think he will be the Repug nominee and this country had better have better sense than to vote for endless, mindless, criminal war.
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