Moby Bush

A few days ago I wrote that regardless of whether or not you think we did the right thing in going into Iraq every American should be united in hoping for a successful establishment of a free and prosperous Iraq. To do otherwise, I wrote, is to implicitly hope for further bloodshed and is morally reprehensible. Yet there appear to be people so consumed by hatred for GWB that they really are yearning for failure in Iraq so that the President will be defeated in November. This is, not to put too fine a point on it, simply despicable. That anyone could actually wish that more Americans and more Iraqis lose their lives just so the Democrat party can regain political power and the object of their obsessions be banished from the White House is reprehensible beyond words. Nevertheless, No Left Turns has a piece taken from an article in the U.K. Spectator which is absolutely stunning for the moral poverty of the journalist it describes. The key passage:

In the column, Toby Harden relates an encounter he had with an American magazine journalist with impeccable credentials. Here is a key excerpt from their discussion: "Not only had she 'known' the Iraq war would fail but she considered it essential that it did so because this would ensure that the 'evil' George W. Bush would no longer be running her country. Her editors back on the East Coast were giggling, she said, over what a disaster Iraq had turned out to be. 'Lots of us talk about how awful it would be if this worked out.' Startled by her candour, I asked whether thousands more dead Iraqis would be a good thing. She nodded and mumbled something about Bush needing to go. By this logic, I ventured, another September 11 on, say, September 11 would be perfect for pushing up John Kerry's poll numbers. 'Well, that's different - that would be Americans,' she said, haltingly, 'I guess I'm a bit of an isolationist.' That's one way of putting it."

I'm reminded of the scene in Herman Melville's Moby Dick where the whaling ship Rachel pulls along side the Pequod and the Rachel's captain pleads with Ahab to help them find his son who has been lost at sea. Ahab, consumed by his hatred for the great white whale, has no room in his heart for human compassion. Every human sentiment must be subordinated to the singular purpose of killing Moby Dick. Every moment must be dedicated to his pursuit. Every moral consideration is secondary to the insane lust for revenge which so perverts Ahab. No loss of human life is too great if it results in the consummation for which he will ultimately, and vainly, give his own life. Melville must have had some contemporary Democrats in mind when he sketched out the demented character of Captain Ahab.