This is why John Kerry's war heroics did not serve him well; in fact, they actually did him harm.  The idea of an ideologically liberal war hero as the Democratic candidate for President simply could not be tolerated in the mind of the radcons.  It did not connect him to radcons.  Instead, it only drove them into a deep ideological fanaticism, where they were willing to take as gospel the most obscene inventions and absurd fantasies.  Most of this, I assume, is derived from grudges they are still holding about the 60's New Left, an ideology that has long since disappeared and which bears virtually no relevance to modern day Liberalism.  But that is a different post.

Along with the bizarre self-identification inherent in radical conservatism, there has evolved and even more dangerous attitude: a tendency to overestimate our military's power. And this where is becomes clear that those who believe themselves to be the finest friends of the military turn out actually to be their worst enemies.  They have sent them into a country without accurate intelligence about its true threat status, they didn't bother to plan for how to win the peace there, and they sent them without adequate troops or supplies.  And they did all of this because it simply never occurred to them that our military might not be able to accomplish their mission under the given circumstances.  And then when the leaders of the military told them they needed to plan more and add more troops, they held them in contempt as Cassandras.  Fine friends indeed.

But Radical Conservatism has even deeper problems inherent to it, and it is in these that we see the truth mirrored back at Rove.  For in arrogantly rejecting out of hand the legitimacy of Liberalism's perspectives, it harms our national discourse and makes any attempt at reaching a national consensus futile.  In so doing, it weakens America, dividing it and polarizing it and catalyzing it to focus more on partisan bickering than on the legitimate problems we face.