Spencer Ackerman's Klan Slander

Let me remind readers of my post from July of last year, "Epitaph for Imperialism? Or, the Death of President Bush Foretold."
In that piece I cited a Spencer Ackerman essay, where he declared of President George W. Bush, "May his war-crimes prosecutor be Iraqi; may his judge be American; and may he die in the Hague."

I generally don't like radical leftists, especially in foreign policy, as they enable America's enemies. But I'm certain that Ackerman's got a special place reserved in Hell - the way he condemns, defames, and demonizes those of upright moral standing and resolve - so things do even out in the end.

I mention all of this with reference to Ackerman's essay today, "Neocons vs. Bob Gates, With Special Guest Appearance by KKK Founder." The piece is a slanderous attack on Thomas Donnelly and Gary Schmitt, and their essay at today's Wall Street Journal, "Obama and Gates Gut the Military." The authors argue that the Obama administration's new Pentagon budget, announced this week by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, will result in "a future U.S. military that is smaller and packs less wallop." Read the whole thing for the specifics (I'd hate to see the F-22 Raptor get the ax after all). At the introduction, the authors quote Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate Cavalry commander and innovative thinker of military doctrine. Forrest was also a founder of the Ku Klux Klan, and this fact provides Ackerman's opening against Donnelly and Schmitt:

Tom Donnelly and Gary Schmitt of the American Enterprise Institute, members in good standing of the neoconservative cabal to eat your babies and conquer the world and then eat more babies, have an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal arguing against Defense Secretary Bob Gates’ program cuts. While they don’t really like the budget, they do seem to like the founder of the Ku Klux Klan ....

American dominance is not so fragile that trading planes is going to eliminate it. But I guess taking advice from Klan leaders leads to all sorts of paranoia.

Ackerman, at one point, takes issue with Donnelly and Schmitt's argument in favor of the F-22, claiming that the F-35 Lightning II (Joint Strike Fighter) is a ready "alternative." Of course, as I cited the other nght, the incomparable F-22 Raptor is the most advanced fighter aircraft ever built, and as my friend Tom the Redhunter notes, the F-35 Lightning "was never intended to be our primary front line fighter"

Spencer Ackerman, who bills himself as a national security "expert," should know this. But the comparative efficacy of military readiness, force postures, and ordnance requirements are irrelevant to Ackerman's program. His demonic goal is to excoriate and ridicule the "evil" neocons, but in the process Ackerman simply demonstrates once again how childish he is. He's might as well quit journalism to focus on his punk band. No doubt some of the Nazi skinheads at his gigs would be better able to appreciate the significance of historical figures such as Nathan Bedford Forrest.

See also, The Redhunter, "Obama's B-1A?"

Image Credit: All Things Beautiful, "The Power of Demonization."