THE WEST WING

Last night I was surfing the channels when I happened across a re-run of The West Wing. This episode dealt with President Bartlet and a downed Air Force jet. Syria shot down a jet with many people on board and the Joint Chief’s were offering the President some “proportionate” responses to the downing. Bartlet went off on why we needed a “proportionate” response when it would accomplish nothing, he wanted a disproportionate response. The Joint Chiefs and Chief of Staff talked him out of it and Bartlet learned the responsibilities of being the only super power left and how disproportionate violence doesn’t stop anything, just like the death penalty doesn’t and blah blah blah. It was your typical liberal clap-trap, even down to the response strike’s name – Pericles 1. (Pericles is blamed for bringing Greece into the war with Sparta because of Pride).

Aside from the fact that Martin Sheen played a hawk (oh my, my sides still hurt from the laughing!!), is that as of October 1999, when this episode first aired, this was typical American reaction to attacks from overseas. Remember blowing up an aspirin factory? Proportionate responses. Bartlet, the genius, gave a soliloquy on how Roman citizens used to be able to walk the known world in safety because they had the might of the legions to back them up. Yet, it is the sign of a great super power that doesn’t act disproportionately.

Ah, isn’t that nice?

Then came George Bush. You fly a few planes into our buildings, we invade your freekin’ country!! You threaten the world with WMD’s and don’t give them up, your gone! These are the “disproportionate” responses Bartlet wanted to give. And it’s these disproportionate responses that caused Libya to say, “Um, we were, like, building some nukes and stuff…but we’ll stop now, ok?” and Iran to say, “Yeah, like, us too and please, don’t go into Iraq and take a right, ok?”.

The Democrats – cruise missiles up camel’s butts.

The Republicans – disproportionate responses and results.