Illinois Reds

The letters to the editor page of the Wall Street Journal seemingly always has a contribution from some mouth-breather from Illinois. Why is that? And their opinions are always, always completely stupid.

A recent missive from Joseph Schroeder of Glenview caught my attention (and I am only using his name and town in case he Googles himself, so he can see that I think he's a moron) for its characteristic inattention to detail and simplistic read on political affairs. Schroeder seems to think that Obama's position on Iraq is that all troops must be withdrawn the second he takes office. Also, this guy thinks that Obama has said that once the US is out of Iraq, everything will be swell.

Putting aside the question of how such an obviously illiterate person could write a letter to the editor (I mean, he clearly cannot read, so did he just invent these positions for Obama?), did it never occur to him that nobody thinks taking troops out of Iraq will improve the situation for Iraqis? The troops leave, civil war breaks out, somebody has to take over and quell the unrest. And that somebody would be...who cares? Somebody. It isn't our place to appoint other peoples' leaders, nor their dictators, nor to decide how they resolve or do not resolve their problems. We deal, first, with our problems, and one of the big problems right now is the economy, which is not improving and sure as shit will not improve while we spend untold billions upon billions of dollars trying to appoint other peoples' leaders and solve other peoples' problems.

So, will there be horror in Iraq when we leave. You bet! Will it affect the US? Not really! Will we be better off, on our own terms, as soon as we leave? No! We'll be better off as soon as people like Joseph Schroeder from Glenview are excluded from the political process; that is, if rank-and-file Republicans are that fucking stupid, then Obama's presidency and the marginalization of the Bush Party can't come fast enough.