Incredibly Stupid Statement of the Day, 05/28/07

And the winner of our first presentation of this new award is ... Dr. Clifford Thies, with this howler from a piece comparing Rudy Giuliani to George S. Patton over at Libertarian [sic] Republican.

I get the idea that Rudy sees the War in Iraq as part of the War on Terror, the way the Korean War or the Vietnam War were parts of the Cold War. If this is so, we will win because freedom is productive, and we can sustain an overwhelming military force out of a few percent of our GDP, whereas they're incapable of sustainsing [sic] any kind of economy at all.

Apparently Dr. Thies was absent from history class on the day that it was explained that the US lost Vietnam, that the war in Korea has remained in "temporary ceasefire" and stalemate for more than 50 years now, that China and a number of other countries remain in communist slavery, and that the USSR collapsed in spite of, not because of, US maintenance of "an overwhelming military force" (and exactly in the way and for the reasons predicted by libertarians from the 1950s on, including but not limited to Murray N. Rothbard and L. Neil Smith).

Also of interest -- but not part of the Stupid Statement award, since it came from Giuliani's mouth and not Dr. Thies's pen, since it's just a lie and not a stupid statement, and since Giuliani's propaganda machine is smooth enough that it's not surprising that Dr. Thies wouldn't know why Giuliani doesn't spend much time in his old city any more:

[Giuliani] offered his condolecenses [sic] for the families of the students and alums of the Citadel who have fallen in the War on Terror, and said he knows their hurt having lost so many policemen and firemen on 9-11.

He didn't "lose" those policemen and firemen -- he sacrificed them to his own incompetence and corruption. Giuliani's not fit to kiss the shoes of those who have lost their loved ones to the idiotic policies of people like himself, let alone compare himself to them.