CONVENTIONAL WISDOM HAS it that, unlike in Vietnam, there is bipartisan support for “the troops” in Iraq despite the many arguments over the conduct of the war and whether U.S. forces should remain in Mesopotamia. This has been a mantra particularly for Democrats, who understand that they’re vulnerable on the issue.
The problem for Democrats is that their core belief that those fighting in Iraq are simply victims translates into a rhetorical kind of pity that strikes a military mind as condescending. Thus Sen. Barack Obama, in his otherwise soaring speech after his South Carolina primary win, sympathizing with “the soldier who doesn’t know his child because he’s on his third or fourth tour of duty.” Or his opponent, Sen. Hillary Clinton, promising, on the same night, that “when we bring them home [from Iraq], we’re going to take care of them. They have been neglected and ignored. . . . We’re going to give them the health care and compensation and support they deserve to have.”
