Academic Argument

On Hardball, Sen. John McCain, highlighted his opposition to the manner in which the War in Iraq was handled by the Administration. He stopped short, however, of actually crticizing the decision to go to war. According to McCain, "We can look back at the past and argue about whether we should have gone to war or not, whether we should have invaded or not, and that's a good academic argument."

"Academic" argument? We all know that when a Republican says "academic" he or she usually means "unimportant." I suspect that there are at least 4,000 Americans and perhaps 100,000 Iraqis who would have liked to have that argument.

Seriously, when did the question of war, of when one country may lay waste to another, become "academic?" When did it stop being fundamental? How did our most basic obligation to each other -- don't kill other people -- become some sort of nicety that we can talk about when it is convenient?

Either Sen. McCain is just trying to frame the issue in a way that makes it easy to marginalize, or he is every bit as callow as our current Commander in Chief or, he seems to have some blind spot in his reasoning when it comes to use of force.