The Part Where I Strenuously Disagree with Tom Ricks Posted by Michael Cohen

Over at Best Defense Tom Ricks has a post up about the "soft lives" of White House staffers who work ridiculously long hours. According to Ricks:

I know a lot of infantrymen who would love to have the soft life these people have. I think this sort of mewling is what happens when you staff the White House mainly with people who think the hardest thing you can do in life is take the bar exam.

This is manifestly unfair, simplistic and dangerous. In the Washington Post article that sparked Ricks complaint I'm not aware of a single White House staffer who compares their plight to those of US soldiers stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq. This is a false and absurd comparison. Even less clear is a White House staffer quoted who asks Tom Ricks or anyone else to feel sorry for them. If anything, quite the opposite.

But, there is a larger and more upsetting implication in Ricks' rant -- that the only real sacrifice an American can make to their country is that of a soldier. Instead of denigrating Americans who choose to give up their personal lives (and time with their children and spouses) to serve their country he should be applauding them. I would imagine that Tom has lived in Washington long enough to know that there are a myriad of ways that people can and should serve their country - both in government and outside and even as a journalist.

But when we start believing that the only true means of national sacrifice is to carry a gun . . . well then we well on our way to becoming a garrison state.

Comments

[mr_mcg]

Agreed. Except I'd say by any reasonable definition we have been a garrison state since at least 1950.

[Peace]

The founders of this country would sharply disagrees with Thomas Ricks. The founders believed that true virtue resided in defending personal liberties against what they perceive to be tyranny and very often its was civilians as opposed to military men that had virtue. In late eighteenth century America, Roman and Greek civilians, such as Cicero,Cato, and Socrates were considered heroes while Sulla, Marius, Ceaser, and Alexander the Great were depicted as tyrants.

[SNLII]

Yes, founders such as the father of the country, George Washington, something of a war hero and deified for same by the, well, founders of the country.