The childlike administration

The president's political maven Karl Rove is in the news after he charged liberals as being soft on terrorism.

Granted, Rove didn't go quite as far as right-wing icon Ann Coulter who's made millions of dollars with a book whose entire theme was: liberals were and continue to be traitors. No hyperbole here. The exact title of her book is: Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism. But Rove's comments are perhaps more insidious precisely because they are less blunt.

This isn't entirely surprising: Rove merely enunciated what has been the underlying theme of Republican political strategy ever since 9/11. After all, smearing opponents as 'soft on [enemy du jour]' served Republicans quite well during the Cold War, so they see no reason to change it now.

According to The Washington Post, Rove cited a petition which called for 'moderation and restraint' following the 9/11 attacks.

Rove fumed, "I don't know about you, but moderation and restraint is not what I felt as I watched the twin towers crumble to the earth, a side of the Pentagon destroyed and almost 3,000 of our fellow citizens perish in flames and rubble," according to a text provided by the White House.

And this pretty epitomizes what's wrong with the administration: they pander to our basest, most savage emotions.

The purpose of government in civilized countries should be to MODERATE the most extreme instincts of the masses; that's why we have representative, not direct, democracy. In a time of crisis, the purpose of government is to offer a cool, rational analysis of the situation and offer well-thought solutions that make sense, rather than decisions arrived at hastily and blinded by anger and emotion. The Founding Fathers often warned of the tyranny of the majority and designed a system designed to RESTRAIN the majority's most extreme impulses.

Essentially that's the difference between adults and children. Children act on their natural impulses. Adults, hopefully, learn to MODERATE and RESTRAIN them.

When angry, children often lash out irrationally after everyone around them, including those who didn't directly cause the anger. In the same situation, we expect adults to show a little, yes, restraint. We expect the adults to more intelligent, reasoned response to a provocation. Imagine if everyone who got punched in the face took an AK-47 and gunned down each person within a three-block radius. What prevents that from happening? Moderation and restraint.

Moderation and restraint are why we send kids to time out. Moderation and restraint are why we often count to ten when angry, before opening our mouthes or clenching our fists. Moderation and restraint don't necessarily imply inaction, but they do imply INTELLIGENT action. Moderation and restraint give you the opportunity to use the gray matter in your head.

Perhaps Rove's and the administration's hostility toward moderation and restraint explain the debacle that resulted in the badly planned, nonsensical aggression against Iraq that now even the CIA suspects might have become counterproductive. Those of us practiced in moderation and restraint feared before the aggression that it would prove counterproductive.

Children often stomp their feet, snivel uncontrollably, hit people (you might call it 'unleashing their power') and throw their toys when something bad happens. We expect adults to show moderation and restraint when something doesn't go their way. We should expect that of our president and his advisors too.

After all, isn't 'moderation and restraint' precisely what we're preaching to the Arab world?

No wonder they don't believe us.