Unfrozen Caveman Voter

Good TCS column references the famous Phil Hartman skit.

excerpt:

Everywhere we see evidence of the Unfrozen Caveman Voter, and the evidence says that he is getting slowly thawed out. Bill Quick, a well-regarded blogger in California, recently wrote a post excoriating George Bush for not following through with the war's prosecution, asking why we allow two of Bush's "most dangerous regimes," North Korea and Iran, to possess "the world's most dangerous weapons." Tigerhawk, another blogger who writes a great deal about military strategy, recently asked, "What will it take to militarize the West?"

I recently had dinner with a friend, another Marine, who said, "You know, at their basic core, Americans are Type-A, aggressive personalities who want nothing more than to just kick a**!" He's right, and not the first to notice this. General George Patton, in his harangues to his troops, frequently pointed out how different they were from those of other countries:

"Many of you have in your veins German and Italian blood. But remember that these ancestors of yours so loved freedom that they gave up home and country to cross the ocean in search of liberty. The ancestors of the people we shall kill lacked the courage to make such a sacrifice and remained slaves."

And then this,

"We Americans are a competitive race ... We love to win. In this next fight, you are entering the greatest sporting competition of all times. You are competing with Americans and with Allies for the greatest prize of all -- victory."

The Unfrozen Caveman Voter is begging to be released. But at the moment, he is being misread by both national parties, and especially the Democrats. Sure, some people oppose the invasion of Iraq or simply hate George Bush, period. And sure, some people distrust all Muslims and are racists. But the vast majority of America falls in the middle of these extremes. However they think of it now, they thought confronting Iraq was a fine idea, and wish it had gone better, but that doesn't translate at all into defeatism, as it is defined, refined and reiterated in the press. On the contrary, they'd like to see more action, more activity, a seizure of the initiative in some way. Using defensive policework and intelligence measures to catch bad guys before they blow up more aircraft are all fine and well, but the Unfrozen Caveman Voter wants very badly to see more offensive measures too.

Don't caricature this attitude with a desire for more invasions, more nation-building, more regime-change, random airstrikes, or wanton slaughter. It's hard to say just what policy exactly might satisfy the caveman demographic. But really, the Unfrozen Caveman Voter intuits a large portion of the art of warfare: opportunities must be created and then exploited -- or if they come by luck, they must be exploited all the same. And finally, the use of extreme and otherwise intolerable violence is necessary if used in the service of victory.

It's not healthy in our republic for such a large slice of the populace to be unrepresented by any politician. But that is the case today. Soon enough it will change...

I do find it kind of funny that the MSM lefties think that Bush's low approval ratings on the war means we've all become peaceniks. If they were really interested in the truth, I guess they'd be asking more detailed poll questions.