An e-mail:
Kathryn –
Re: Your recent Corner posting
Again with the “P” word. While I understand you’re trying to convey the relatively recent increase of Republican and conservative skittishness inside the Beltway, the rest of America appears to understand that war is hell. We know that snafus will occur. We know that battles are lost and won. We know that victory is the end of a journey paved with death and sacrifice.
It amazes me how the Beltway crowd – including some otherwise steadfast conservative journalists – are easily made wobbly (wobbled?) by relatively short periods of setbacks.
Perhaps it has something to do with the very conservative and slow-moving nature of our Jeffersonian democracy. The best and brightest that want to really make a change in life start small businesses, enter corporate management or small non-profit organizations, or even just start a family.
That’s where change is fast and furious, and certain arduous times are expected along the way to achieving successes both tiny and monumental.
Those who prefer the glacial speed of government, where change measured by micrometers are considered radical shifts in policy, go to Washington. Now that big changes are afoot in DC, and battles with terrorists in Iraq are scaring the you-know-what out of certain policymakers and wonks, these policy conservatives are out of their element, and scared.
It’s a good thing the rest of America, historically where change and adversity have led us to better lives, understand. I just hope you folks in DC did, too, sometimes.