The Last Days of the Sunshine Patriot

"These are the times that try men's soul's. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and women" – Thomas Paine

In calling for Sen. Joe Lieberman’s head, many of his eager executioners have lost their own. One blogger headlines his usual spit and piddle with the title “Lieberman Must Be Destroyed,” while a statewide columnist refers to him contemptuously as Uriah Heap.

Now that we can speak with bowed heads and chastened hearts of President Barack Obama, an early anti-Iraq war enthusiast, it is supposed by ardent Democrat Party activists -- many of whom, the modern equivalent of Paine’s sunshine patriots, spend their days in bathrobes writings blogs -- that present leader of the Democrat Party in the US Senate Harry Reid should deprive Lieberman of his perks, take from him a quick confession, lead the repentant sinner to the executioners block and there strike off his head, which thereafter will be mounted on a pike at the entrance of the Capitol building as an object lesson for other Democrats who presume to challenge the smelly little orthodoxies within their party on the matter of war and peace.

There is a problem.

Democrats, Independents and some stray Republicans have just elected as their new president a man who has pledged many times to end the war in Iraq, now a distinct possibility, for the purpose of committing troops and treasury to the war in Afghanistan. A little below Afghanistan lies Pakistan's tribal zones, the so-called badlands of Pakistan, a sovereign country that has just given the boot to Pervez Musharraf, a military strongman and president once considered friendly to US interests. Pakistanis refer to the tribal areas as "ilaka ghair," or the land of the lawless. Outwardly, Pakistan’s new government is urging the United States to discontinue its policy of targeting known terrorists in the inaptly named Federal Controlled Territories. Inwardly, embroiled in a longstanding conflict with India over Kashmir and now attacked by aggressive terrorists operating from the tribal territories, Pakistan is trembling.

When Obama, who knows a little more than Sarah Palin about that corner of the world, asks himself, “What would General Patton do?” he is asking himself what would Lieberman do? We know what the sunshine patriots of Blogdom and the editorial page of the New York Times would do. Unanswerable to history, not to mention voters, they would run away. But it is doubtful at this point that Obama will be in the crowd rushing for safety – because, apart from the destruction or pacification of terrorists, there is no safety.

Now, there are two theories about Obama: The first is that he is a consummate liar with a literary bent, personable, quick on his feet and treacherous, as befits a Chicago politician.

And the second is that he is not a sunshine patriot.

Time will tell which theory is proven by events.

As to Lieberman, Sen. Chris Dodd, who has problems of his own, recently was quoted on the point of Lieberman’s immanent beheading: “What does Barack Obama want? He's talked about reconciliation, healing, bringing people together. I don't think he'd necessarily want to spend the first month of this president-elect period, this transition period, talking about a Senate seat, particularly if someone is willing to come forward and is willing to be a member of your family in the caucus in that sense.”

The truth is sloshing around in there somewhere.

The truth is sloshing around in there somewhere, but even Dodd’s pragmatic defense of Lieberman has earned him thumps among the crowd of hyenas lapping at Lieberman’s heels.

Connecticut awaits a surge of venom from the state’s increasingly rabid leftists titled “Dodd Must Be Destroyed.”