Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Armchair Jingoes

Barbara Tuchman reminds me that the current cries of "chicken hawk" are nothing new. That's why Teddy Roosevelt sailed with the Rough Riders and went to war in Cuba:


Men like myself, as he wrote privately to a friend, having been taunted with being "armchair and parlor Jingoes, ... my power for good whatever it may be, would be gone if I didn't try to live up to the doctrines that I have tried to preach."

Forming a volunteer cavalry regiment is in the past, of course. But it is interesting that in a hundred years anti-war movements haven't been able to come up with something better than charging "chicken hawk" to avoid arguing the merits of war with pro-war civilians.