The 1859 Game: Who’s Stephen A. Douglas Now?

I would really like to have pity for Sen. John McCain.

As an historian I really would. He has lost his chance at the Presidency. His top campaign aides have quit, or they were fired, or he just ran out of money to pay them. He has followed the Nixon Thesis of Conflict to his political end, just as Stephen A. Douglas (right) followed the Jackson Thesis of Regional Balance to his political end in 1859.

As you can tell from the last sentence, I am too tired, sick, and angry to play today. Because I can’t have any pity for John McCain, despite the Greek Tragedy of his political career, even despite his terrible ordeal at the hands of the North Vietnamese.

Because there he was today, on the floor of the Senate, blaming "The Left" for the Cambodian genocide, when it was the Nixon invasion of 1970 which precipitated that genocide. There he was on the floor of the Senate today, trotting out the Domino Theory of the Vietnam era and again demanding fealty to the Cold War Doctrine where it has no place.

While people were dieing for his words. While brave Americans died for his lies.

And what about Vietnam? Sure, the government is nominally communist.
But what is that, today? It is not what McCain thinks it means. The economy is mixed, the country functions.
It has become one of Anthony Bourdain’s favorite travel destinations, a
wonderland of culture, mystery, and food he thinks we all should visit.

Iraq should be so lucky. Iraq, the cradle of civilization, the birthplace of modern man, should be
so lucky as to be habitable  a generation from now. Because of the
hubris of men like Sen. John McCain. There he was today, on the floor of the
Senate, claiming he wasn’t impugning anyone’s patriotism, then impugning
away nevertheless, as though an apology before the poke in the eye
makes it all right. Bastard.

Iraq was lost before we went in. It was lost because we had no idea
what "victory" meant. We still don’t. McCain seems to think that "only
victory is acceptable," yet today defines victory as an impossible-to-achieve
set of conditions, with friends of America in charge, overseen by a
monstrous "embassy" which puts Saddam’s own palaces to shame — and
which cost you and I more than Saddam spent on all those other palaces combined. His only definition of victory is eternal occupation.

Two points need to be made:

1. There are ways to fight ideologues other than killing people.
2. The war starts stopping when the death starts stopping.

McCain had the nerve to claim Anbar Province as some sort of success
story. What happened in Anbar Province this year is that Americans
surrendered to the Sunni Sheiks who had previously been murdering our
people, and would still be murdering them had we not surrendered to
them.

It is not The Left that lost Cambodia, and it is not The Left that
has lost Iraq, Mr. McCain. It is you, and the Idiots you follow, who
lost both. The genocide of the past and the genocide of the present are
both on your hands, as a Republican, as a Nixon follower, and that
stain will never, ever, ever be wiped away.

It took generations for Democrats to wipe away the stain of Douglas, to end the bloody shirt. May it take generations for Republicans to wipe the stain of your blood from their hands. .

History has done with you, Mr. McCain. Off the stage now, please.
And never darken it again. Your ideology is murder, just as Douglas’
excuses for slavery were murder.

I will have no more of it, or you, again.