If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the political arena

I was listening to Michael Medved during my lunch break today (as I often do). His guest was Michael Berg, the father of Nick Berg, who was beheaded on video by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the late leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Mr. Berg, who is currently running on the Green Party ticket for a congressional seat in Delaware, is obviously a very disturbed individual. He does not blame Zarqawi for the death of his son Nick, even though authorities are quite sure it was Zarqawi's own hand on the knife that severed Nick's head. Mr. Berg blames George W. Bush for the death of his son. Now I am no fan of most of the things GWB is currently doing, but to absolve Zarqawi of any wrongdoing...?

Mr. Berg was full of stereotypical liberal cliches. He said that there are no evil people; only evil actions - imagine that, I just talked about this a few posts ago. He said that he felt sad that Zarqawi was killed because he feels sad when any human being is killed, and Zarqawi has a family that is mourning right now, too - of course, I don't consider Zarqawi to be a human being. When asked by Medved how Zarqawi should have been punished had he been taken alive, Mr. Berg said - I am not making this up - that Zarqawi (and all criminals for that matter) should have been given restorative, rather than punitive, justice. For Zarqawi, that meant he should have spent the rest of his life working in a hospital for children who have missing limbs. Being around this day after day for the rest of his life would have caused Zarqawi to see the error of his ways. Wow! I was thinking that Zarqawi would have probably tried to identify all the non-Muslim children and then kill them.

Some people who read this might be thinking, "C'mon Chanman, give the guy a break, his son was murdered." This brings me to a related topic that is hot in the news, and that is Ann Coulter's new book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism. As she has begun promoting her book, the leftist media has put her on the hot seat for criticizing several 9/11 widows and their political views. She calls this situation "liberal infallibility". The lefties find these sad cases such as the 9/11 Widows, Cindy Sheehan - whose son was killed in Iraq, or congressman John Murtha, who served as a Marine in Vietnam. These people are then sent out to parrot the leftist political points about the war and other leftist causes. If we on the right disagree with those political points being made by these people, then we on the right are considered heartless insensitive clods for daring to criticize these poor people in their time of distress.

This point applies to Michael Berg. I am sorry he lost his son. If my son grew up to be murdered in that way, it would tear my heart out. But as soon as Michael Berg began going on radio and t.v. in order to criticize President Bush's foreign policy (one of the few policies of his that I halfway agree with), and when Mr. Berg threw his hat in the ring to run for congress, then all bets are off. He can no longer hide behind the murder of his son in order to deflect criticism for the political stances that he publicly takes. He and his supporters cannot say, "Oh boo-hoo, how can you disagree with me like that when I have lost my son in such a horrible manner! Have you no compassion for what I am going through?" This applies as well to Cindy Sheehan, who has gotten to the point where she uses her dead son as a mere prop in order to "authenticate" her political positions. Never mind that her son didn't agree with her political positions. If he had, he wouldn't have been in the military or in Iraq to begin with.

Good Day to You, Sir