The Rehabilitation of John Walker Lindh

Vodkapundit today takes a look at the "Long War" and wonders if we can Stay Focused.  He does not believe our society is doing what is required in order to in the war, and I see little to disagree with in his formulation:

If we’re going to win a long, ideological war, we need our primary schools to [teach] our children what patriotism is - and for the most part, they don’t. We need our college professors to give our best and brightest the intellectual ammunition to confront our destroyers – and for the most part, they don’t. We need our public thinkers to defend our laws and our way of life against foreign aggression – and for the most part, they don’t. We need our entertainers to choose the home team – and for the most part, they don’t. We need our politicians to show the backbone of Churchill, but for the most part, they don’t. And we need our military to understand, embrace, and put everything on the line for their country.

One out of six? That’s pretty bad. Is it enough? Probably not.

Our schools, our public thinkers, our entertainers, and our politicians either do not realize we are at war (which is hard to believe, but possible) or understand we are at war yet are unable to break out of their sclerotic paradigms.  Our media continues to view the world through the dialectical lens of Political Correctness.  In the PC world, there are only victims and oppressors and once a group or an individual has been determined to be a victim, they are held to minimal standards of accountability and seen as innocents whose atrocities are explained as the result of their desperate circumstances (especially their oppression by the West.)  Among other things, this allows the media to simplify the news in the service of "Stories" or "Narratives."  Although the media often has pretensions of sophistication and nuance, in reality, they have very little time or ability to explain complex stories in any depth and falling back on the ready made "victim" template is the easiest way to get stories into print.

John Walker Lindh is now being actively rehabilitated in the media.