Kevin Drum has a post up over at the Washington Monthly blog about Beinart's book, The Good Fight. In it he talks about Iran and how he feels stuck between bashing Iran rightly for its own unsavory practices and the knowledge that by doing so publicly his rhetoric will be coopted by the Bush Administration in to whatever their Mad Scheme with Iran is.

So that started me thinking all over again about why my first targets are the Bushies (see my last emotional post!) rather than regimes that are clearly bad ones. I've had a few posts on this subject over here at TPM but I thought I'd collect those ideas into one place to answer that question: Why Go After Bush/GOP First?

What Bush, Cheney, the GOP congress and their various enablers are doing undermines the power and laws of the Constitution. The Constitution sets down the ideals of this country, that are what founded this nation. These ideals are what make me an American!

When those things are threatened the spirit and existence of my country are threatened, who I am is threatened. Right now the threat that poses is closer and more immediate than anything else -- a clear and present danger.

I think its justified to focus on it more than on bashing Iran for it's own horrible practices even without taking into consideration that any rhetoric I use will eventually be coopted by the Bush administration for even more horrible ends.

But what if people are killed because of it?

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

Even if it was written by his biographer, that famous phrase says it all. If that means that I have to die because I won't support 24/7 surveillance of innocent citizens or arresting people and placing them in prison for years without charge so a terrorist bombs a bus I am on, then so be it.

If my country has liberty and freedom, than no terrorist can kill it and no nuclear weapon can cow it into submission, the very ideals of my country won't allow us to be beaten that way. But if we let those ideals go, we'd be killing ourselves and I'm not going to let that happen without a fight.

The ideals of liberty in the Constitution are just that, ideals. When we try to implement those ideals we usually fail, and fail miserably but at least we tried! Our hands might not be any cleaner than other nations, but at least some of us wanted to be!

It might not be much, but I'm willing to fight for that.