Words and duty

Excerpted from an item by Michael Kinsley at Comment is Free today. About Jim Webb, one of our new senators,

"Webb seems to believe that because he served in Vietnam, anyone who could have but didn't should shut up. That includes people who opposed that war - that is, who got it right - as well as those who supported it. Webb's son is serving in Iraq now…"

And then about Bush’s political strategy,

"At first it seemed like a brilliant strategy - repellent, but brilliant - to isolate most Americans from the cost of the war in Iraq. It's starting to seem a lot less so. As the deaths and injuries mount, more and more people are touched by the war - and become understandably resentful of those who are not. Bush, in his speeches, is eloquent about what no one doubts - the sacrifice - but banal about what most people have come to doubt: the purpose.

In short, words are cheap when uttered by those who have not done their duty.