The sophistry of partisanship never ceases to amaze me. I read several blogs since the President’s West Point speech making the premise that “victory” in Afghanistan is conservative and desire for withdrawal, restraint, or reappraisal is liberal. I have never felt war is a matter of conservative or liberal perspective. It is a matter of policy. Good policy or bad policy, right or wrong, justified or unjustified, or thrust constitutionally or unconstitutionally upon the body politic. In my opinion, our foolish distraction with the trifles of political ideology when considering matters of war and peace is indicative of a lazy democracy sequestered in a museum of past heroic thoughts and deeds, allowing superficial patriots the belief the lineament of what went before is unquestionably sufficient to sanctify the motives and actions of today. The President’s arcane and apodictic platitudes explaining the need for victory in a war where the virtue of additional investment of blood and treasure required months of intense debate seems to suggest the sour Machiavellian end serves no purpose other than to be politically correct consolation and cover for the ideological spin-doctors of upcoming elections. His Olivian oration notwithstanding, we were left with undefined victory, a mutable enemy, and clear evidence of the monomania infecting our Afghan policies. Our leaders are having ideological pissing contests, a deluge of American and Afghan blood is falling on our faces, and we still have a drought of “national security”. I don’t know his ideological affiliation, but Solomon ain’t singing.