War Phonies

Barton Swaim, a sometimes-erudite opinion writer for the Wall Street Journal, posed this question to writer Mark Helprin in a column that appeared over the weekend. Swaim, whose soft, earnest face first graced the stage of opinion theater following a stint as speechwriter for silly South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, enumerated all the "criminals, ideologues, and irredentists" who could possibly threaten the United States.