A reader points out that there’s nothing new about the distinction between the patriotism that celebrates acts of national dishonor, as long as they’re successful in the short run, and the patriotism that rejects such expedients with disgust. Nor, for that matter, is there anythine new about the habit, among those who would turn our unique republic into just another empire in the dreary history of imperialism, of calling those of us loyal to the republic “traitors.”
I don’t mind a bit being on Mark Twain’s side of this controversy, and I’m happy to let George W. Bush and Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Reynolds imitate those who called Twain a traitor for opposing the Philippine adventure and those who disparaged Lincoln’s patriotism for charging that President Polk had lied us into the Mexican-American War.