Hit it on the head:

[jrittenhouse]

My favorite conservative columnist, Daniel Larison, is hitting it on the head and out of the ballpark this morning about the mindless OMG’ing in the Beltway press and elsewhere about political dishonesty on national security issues.

He brings up two main directions on this:

1. if Group A is out of office, then Group B (who is in) are feebly trying to

Comments

[wcg]

It's a good article Jim, and I agree with what's being said. I think the problem of out-party hawkishness goes back even further. I'm thinking of Andrew Jackson's campaign against John Quincy Adams.

[docstrange]

Certainly. And well before that in Parliament.

[wcg]

Yes. William Pitt the elder and the Patriot Whigs come to mind.

[aries_jordan]

And the guy in the Roman Senate who kept carping on the Carthaginian Menace until the others agreed to destroy it.

[jrittenhouse]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carthago_delenda_est

[wcg]

Cato the elder, with his, "Carthago delanda est," is the person I assume you mean. He actually had pretty good reason for what he was saying, and it wasn't just someone who was out of political power and trying to convince a hesitant government to be more aggressive. He just foresaw the clash between Roman and Carthaginian interests, and kept telling the rest of the Senate what it was going to take to deal with it. Unlike his grandson who was generally seen as a crank and a nuisance, Cato the elder had a wide base of political support and was never really "out of power" as long as he lived.