One of the most common charges from the anti-war Left made against those supporting the war is that they are chickenhawks. As I mentioned in a previous post, I have been accused of being one of these on several occassions (I guess because I am not in the military and neither are my five and eight-year-old daughters). Ed Morrisey has a must read post on the subject.

The Left has tried for months now to smear supporters of the war as “chickenhawks”, people who encourage the war but do not want to fight it themselves. On its face, this rejects the entire notion of civilian control over the military and foreign policy. It also assumes a callousness on the part of those who advocate for military action when needed, that men and women somehow hold no value to us as Americans unless they happen to be us. Such personal attacks completely avoid having to argue the merits and disadvantages of military action as opposed to other strategies, reducing the intellectual level of the anti-war advocates to mindless namecalling.

Unfortunately, the Washington Post joins that crowd with a laughable look at recruitment by Terry Neal. Neal deduces that middle-class and wealthy parents, all of whom he assumes vote Republican, go out of their way to keep military recruiters from talking to their kids, which has led to a crisis in recruiting. How does Neal come to that conclusion?

Read the rest to learn how misrepresentations and anecdotal evidence were used to reach Neal’s conclusion. Captain Ed perfectly explains why the chickenhawk argument is “mindless namecalling.”

If the chickenhawk argument (if namecalling can be called an argument) is taken to its logical conclusion, the only way to be certain that chickenhawks did not start and support wars would be to allow only those in the military, or parents of those in the military, to vote for the Commander-In-Chief and for Congress, since they authorize funds for military action. I don’t think those currently doing all the chickenhawk talk would be so happy if that happened. I wonder how many members of the House and Senate would be Republican then?

More on the subject:
When Are All You Pro-War Bush Lovers Going To Enlist?
Betsy Newmark answering the criticism of the Bush twins
Playing “Chickenhawk” from Jonah Goldberg
The Chicken Hawk Argument from New England Republican
The Chickenhawk Slur from John Hawkins