Lew Rockwell finally replied to the e-mail that was the subject of the previous post – once it was a post. (It pays to blog.)

Dear Tony, That doesn't matter. The point is that people voted based on an ideal rather than their perceived economic self-interest. In any case, the handling of the war and the war itself are inseparable, same as socialism and the handling of socialism.

My point, Lew, was that very few Americans deserved the praise that your piece bestowed rather promiscuously on “the people.”

By overlooking the nearly half of the electorate who voted “red,” you overstated your point.

And are not the victorious “blues” best represented by Congressman Murtha, who supported the war then but now prefers to spend the $8 billion monthly/$11 million hourly (the war’s current cost, as Murtha informed Katie Couric several times last night) on the welfare side of the welfare-warfare State?

Your analogy with socialism is lost on me. Since when has dissatisfaction with actual attempts to socialize ever soured the masses to the ideal of socialism?

In the mass, "the people" bought Bush’s party line on Iraq, and had the war been the advertised “cakewalk,” few would have uttered a peep of protest. Opposition is purely pragmatic: the current policy's “not working.”

As Murtha made clear, the empire-compatible euphemism of the day is “redeployment.” The “anti-war” party cannot even bring itself to use the word “withdrawal,” let alone “disarmament.” In response to Ms. Couric's point-blank challenge to clarify whether he's calling for WITHDRAWAL Murtha says he wants

complete redeployment of our troops out of Iraq over a period of time. . . . They could go to Bahrain, they could go to Kuwait, they could go to the periphery. We’re not deserting Iraq. What we’re doing is sending our troops to the periphery where they can go back in if [Iraq's turmoil] endangers our troops or if it endangers our allies.

Gee, we have so many allies in that region, I can't tell whom he meant. But don't expect "the people" to grill him about it.

But I guess my Hoppean point about the demos’ lust for power doesn’t matter. All that matters is that they traded in one war party for another.