He that stands it NOW

The title of this post is taken from a speech by Thomas Paine. Here is the whole more famous quote:

The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.

This all came up in a response to Andrew Sullivan's general theme of "Oh woe is me. It is all going to shit and Bush has no plan."

So here is what I wrote to Andrew:

When a war reaches its peak it is very hard to tell which side is winning and which side is losing.

At that point the side with the most "bottom" wins.

Where is your bottom Andrew? Where is your desire to soldier on despite the difficulties and setbacks?

So the battle didn't go as planned. The enemy is stronger than we expected. So fookin what? That is the way war goes. It is an adversarial not a co-operative venture. There will be setbacks. Think of the "Tarawa mother" re: the Pacific Battles of WW2. You killed my son on Tarawa. War hurts.

The side best able to withstand the hurts wins.

So Andrew let me ask - are you helping withstand the hurts or just complaining of the pain?

I used to think of you as a patriot. Today I'd put you in the summer soldier catagory.See Thomas Paine for further info.

When wasn't war hard?