Fool – Memphis Flyer

Well, let’s just go ahead and admit it. If Knoxville state Senator Stacey Campfield’s fellow Republicans succeed in purging him, via an establishment-backed candidate, in this August’s GOP primary, we may join in the public celebration that is

almost certain to occur. But we’ll be shamming a little bit.

The fact is, if he goes, we’ll miss Stacey. Who else but Mr. “Don’t Say Gay,” aka Senator “Starve the Children,” is anywhere near as capable of raising to consciousness the most outrageous and unworthy thoughts still extant in a Western Civilization striving to live up to its textbook ideals?

Who else is so good at giving voice to the undeclared agenda that is at the heart of the current Tea-Party-dominated Tennessee General Assembly?

“Starve the children?” Maybe an overstatement — though that’s exactly what was at the core of Campfield’s late, unlamented bill to take state assistance away from households whose children happened to be failing at school. “Ignore the children and starve their parents” is more accurate as a description of an administration and a legislature that have run riot over local school boards’ wishes and made it impossible for concepts such as minimum wage and living wage even to be discussed by the state’s city and county jurisdictions. So, of course, let’s add the concept of “disempower local governments” as an aspect of the overall state GOP mantra.

Campfield is down with all that — and more. But he has begun to offend his masters in the state Republican Party. Why? Because he talks too much (and writes too much on his blog), expressing too candidly what’s really on the mind of his party leaders. He’s blabbing state secrets, as it were.

Campfield may finally have crossed the line this week, however, and in so doing has become a candidate for official elimination. On his tacky/sassy online blog Camp4u, he supplied the following “Thought of the Week” on Monday: ”Democrats bragging about the number of mandatory sign ups for Obamacare is like Germans bragging about the number of manditory sign ups for “train rides” for Jews in the ’40s.”

Comparing insurance company sign-ups for health care to the annihilation of Jews in Hitler’s Final Solution? Not one ranking Republican, let alone Democrats and just folks, was willing to follow him there. The statement was, as state Democratic Chairman Roy Herron said, “outrageous, pathetic, and hateful.” To be sure. But what delights us more are almost identical statements by state GOP Chairman Chris Devaney (“No political or policy disagreement should ever be compared to the suffering endured by an entire generation of people.”) and House GOP Majority Leader Gerald McCormick (“[The] disgraceful blog post compared a policy dispute with the suffering of an entire race of people … .”)

And there, in a nutshell (ahem), is Campfield’s redeeming public service: By going so outrageously far afield, he is forcing his party’s leaders — who have done their share of demonizing the political opposition — into admitting that all their public bluster and invective aimed at Democrats is really just policy disagreement in disguise.

Fine, then. Let us henceforth reason together — and be thankful to Campfield for his own (inadvertent) contribution to political dialogue.

Remember the “Coalition of the Willing”? It was all the rage back in 2003. President Bush managed — by coercion, sweet-talk, bullshit, or a combination thereof — to convince 25 countries that sending troops to invade Iraq alongside American forces was a good idea.

The coalition’s forces once totaled 50,000 soldiers. Almost four years later, that number is down to around 15,000 — and falling fast. Italy pulled out its remaining 3,000 troops last month. South Korea is down to 2,300 troops and is considering withdrawing all of its forces by the end of the year. Even Great Britain, our staunchest ally with 7,000 troops, is planning to cut its forces in half in the next few months. The bottom line is clear: The Coalition is no longer Willing.

And neither is the American public. In November, they voted the Republicans in Congress who enabled this fiasco out of power. Every recent opinion poll indicates that almost 70 percent of Americans think putting more troops in Iraq is a bad idea. And this is after Bush’s dead-eyed speech to “rally” the country last week.

At least nine Republican senators have said the surge is a bad idea. Many conservatives, including George Will, Joe Scarborough, and Bush syncophant Peggy Noonan of The Wall Street Journal have come out against it. The bipartisan Iraq Study Group is against it. The former generals on the ground are against it. The Iraqi government is against it.

They all understand that sending 20,000 more Americans into a four-sided (and counting) civil war where every enemy fighter looks the same makes no sense. It’s too little, too late. That’s why other countries are pulling troops out. That’s why the American public is deadset against the surge.

But the Decider hears no one. He listens only to his “heart.” He says he won’t change his mind, even if the only people who support him are “Laura and Mrs. Beasley [his dog].”

Now is the time, friends, to write letters to your congressman, to be loud and vociferous, to make sure we stop this fool before he kills again. Those are our precious troops, not his playthings. This is our country, not his.

Bruce VanWyngarden

brucev@memphisflyer.com