comrade perlstein must have noticed that the troops in fact adore president bush in a way they never showed clinton. we don't need leftists to tell us how the world works, and the place the left has in that world. perlstein has never posted one thought worth reading, here, and i don't expect that to change. what a sad thing it is to be a leftist now, after the world has moved on and no longer believes your lies and fantasies. nothing left to do but get that ticket on the kervorkian express, and hope for a better deal on the other side.

except for the fact that for them there is no other side.

also, if the spectacularly clueless Mr. Perlstein thinks he can convince any reasonable person that the 'right secretly hates the military' ... well, his cluelessness has reached some sort of zenith.

"the Right secretly hates the military".

That's either a serious case of projection, or a paranoid Manchurian Candidate fantasy worthy of Oliver Stone and Michael Moore--or both.

Perlstein saying that the Right hates the military is like the NYT trying to write about shades of opinion within the conservative movement: there is always an agenda, not so hidden.

Apparently the military doesn't like the President as much as they used to:

"Support for President George W. Bush's Iraq policy has fallen among the US armed forces to just 54 percent from 63 percent a year ago, according to a poll by the magazine group Military Times.

In its annual survey of the views of military personnel, the group reported on its website that support for Bush's overall policies dropped over the past year to 60 percent from 71 percent."

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/01/02/060102234337.if0cb0yj.html

The Right doesn't hate the military; the elites of both parties just don't care about the peons, and have learned from a young age to justify the suffering of others to maintain the comfort of their own.

Rick: Sigh. No one who knows anything about the military thinks that they are lockstep behind any party, philosophy, or person. That's the fundamental fault of Mr. Perlstein when he attempts to analyze anything related to the military--he doesn't have the slightest grasp of the military, and so he thinks it's shocking when someone in the military expresses disapproval of a Republican. The military is a pretty good reflection of the American population, although they are in general more willing to place themselves at great personal physical risk (duh), which leads to certain deviations from overall opinion, of course.

But as with all polls about Bush and Iraq, they never seem to ask of the "disagree" set something like: "Is that because you think Bush's policies are 1) too aggressive, 2) not aggressive enough, or 3) don't know?" I suspect a large chunk would choose #2. The left always makes it sound like everyone who disagrees with Bush on Iraq is necessarily on their side, which I doubt is the case.

PapayaSF: Most who would say that Bush isn't aggressive enough aren't in disagreement with Bush per se, they would probably blame liberals and other soft-hearted American idealists, and not Bush, for not having the balls to nuke the entire Middle East back into the Stone Age. I doubt when these people answer exit polls they say that they disagree with the president's policies.
B: totally agree.

Grog:

They do in fact say that they disagree.

Bush was humorously demeaning himself in his comment, a widely practiced form of humor. OJ's right, Perlstein has no sense of humor or no sense of propiety in his remarks.

Groq, you haven't a clue. Bush obviously loves the troops as evidenced by his remark.

Wrong, grog, I'm 1 and I know another - plus the polls - do you agree/disagree with the handling of the war?

I'd be in the disagree column, not hard enough.

grog loses the plot again.

Anyone who thinks that the elite maintain their comfort by justifying the suffering of others is, well, delusional.

Grog agrees with b, especially in the (Duh).