It’s unfortunate that Mr. Hoffman in his completely fabricated story took exception at my noting his utter ignorance. I was in fact giving him the benefit of the doubt as he had his history all wrong as usual, and I just assumed he hadn’t bothered to research almost anything that happened leading up to the McCarthy hearings. The obverse of ignorance in this case is deception, but I truly believe that Mr. Hoffman deceives only himself.

I gather from his writings that Mr. Hoffman is a dogmatist. He undoubtedly believes that the world was made in seven calendar earth days as defined by the Navy clock in West Virginia. He sees things through his own narrow spectrum and makes broad judgments based on his incomplete view.

And all of that is fine until he and people like him get involved with things that matter in the real world. Like his hero George W. Bush, he simply “knows” which then allows him to draw conclusions and damn the evidence.

This form of intellectual laziness is really THE hallmark of modern conservatism. “Knowing” how the world is allows these modern “conservatives” to avoid doing their homework.

George Bush knew that Saddam Hussein had used poison gas back in the ‘80s and also knew Saddam couldn’t account for the destruction of all his stockpiles. Bush drew the straight line from that knowledge to the “grave and growing threat” that he used to justify the war in Iraq.

In between was the question: How does poison gas in Iraq represent a threat to the U.S.? Bush, and Cheney, and Wolfowitz, and Feif, and a host of other draft-dodging fools simply made up their minds that they had a casus belli with Iraq, and ensured that data supporting their pre-conceived views had front and center as “intelligence.”

Mr. Hoffman “knows” what a liberal is, calls me one and therefore assumes he knows me. So let me run down his list and see how close he came in the real world.

Am I a Democrat? Yes. Pro-choice? Yes, but modified in the sense of Justice Blackmon. Pro-labor? Proudly so, as was my father who landed in the first wave on Omaha Beach.

Pro-government solution? No. Anti-corporation? What a stupid concept; absolutely no.

Jettison traditional morality? Been married to the same beautiful woman for 22 years, have three beautiful kids, six sisters, two brothers, and a host of nieces and nephews.

Why on earth would I want to destroy morality? I just don’t want the government, the church or Hoffman poking around my bedroom.

Now this one about the military really got to me, and I’ve addressed it before but here I go again.

I distrusted the military so much that I left my family to attend the Air Force Academy at 17. In doing so I committed myself to four years there, one year in pilot training and five years on active duty.

I ended up doing nine years on active duty, and then distrusted the military so much I spent another 11 years in the National Guard. I flew 15 of those years as a front-line combat A-10 pilot.

My son knows all four verses to the Air Force song (more or less). I still know all my Dooly (freshman) quotes, “When I cut myself, I bleed Air Force blue.” I love the institution and the traditions of the military and am humbled by the legends of Rickenbacker, Spaatz, Bong, and Olds.

I don’t know whether Hoffman is a panty-waste Cheney type or a Navy Seal Medal of Honor-winning Bob Kerrey type, and in some ways it really doesn’t matter. What he and other so-called conservatives have been trying to do, linking the military with the political, is both short-sighted and dangerous.

It is the constitutional duty of the military to carry out the wishes of the National Command Authority. Its members do not make policy and are strictly prohibited by law from using their position for political purposes. When that military is viewed as a political arm of the party in power, it risks the same venality so common in politics.

I can disagree with the President and love the infantry. I see a lot of bumper stickers around here with “Support Our Troops” emblazoned on them. There is, of course, no way to separate the heartfelt who may be comforting a deployed National Guardsman’s family in his absence with the blustery never-been-there businessman I always run into who wanted to fly but his eyesight was too bad. Well, there you go!

Timothy J. Parker
timsueparker (at) earthlink.net