Digby speaks for me

Another difficult to quote post:

Being lectured all the time by effete DC Democrats on "patriotism" because I don't back their reflexively hawkish foreign policy is not only insulting it's dumb. It plays into stereotypes that only serve the Republicans by turning this into a dick measuring contest when we should be turning the conversation into who can get the job done. I would submit that if anyone's been traumatized by the Vietnam experience it's the tired Democratic national security hawks who are always rushing to support military action, no matter how insanely counterproductive, because some Republican somewhere might call him a pussy. They've been around since the 60's too. Hell, they've been around forever.

The only thing I would add to this is that Democrats like Will Marshall do his party no service by repeating Republican talking points ("Liberals are anti-patriotic because they were traumatized by the anti-war experience of the 60s"). Hell Mr. Marshall! I was born in 1965 but my formative political experience was during the Reagan years. The 60s are naught to me but an image on the TV screen. I'll thank you very much not to broad-brush whole generations of Democrats with your simplistic formulations.

It's obvious that Mr. Marshall just doesn't understand the rest of his party. Maybe its time for him and others like him to stop trying to lecture to the rest of us about the proper way to demonstrate patriotism and instead spend some time actually talking to us about our concerns.

Or would he rather just pontificate on high about our motives?

(Note: unlike others who outright hate the DLC wing of the Democratic party, I try not to ascribe nefarious motives to the ridiculous pronouncements of people like Mr. Marshall. Many Democrats like to accuse the DLC of being closet Republicans who are deliberately trying to sabotage the party at the bidding of their corporate paymasters. I prefer to think that they are just idiots who don't know what the hell they are talking about.)