Perle snaps at Steve from Minneapolis, "What do YOU know about my family??!!"

[Stephen Philion]

Found an effective way to get under Richard Perle's skin this morning.  He was on Minnesota Public Radio's Midmorning program this morning, a call in show, pushing his new book calling for endless war. I asked him how come, if the war on terror is such an important war that all americans should make sacrifices for,  aren't Bush's nephews or Cheney's nephews, grandchildren, or Richard Perle's grandchildren, nephews, signing up for the war against Iraq, the one for the missing WMDs?  The host of the program asked me to clarify something and I followed up noting that Minnesota Norm Coleman's children, for example, are going to college instead of signing up for the "war".  Jeb Bush's sons, in their twenties, the same.... Perle got all feather ruffled and snapped back angrily, "What do you know about my family, first of all?" A funny response, if he wanted he could have rebuffed me by stating that he had family members dying.  Then he claimed I was 'demogoging' and went on with the usual rhetoric about a 'volunteer army'. The show's format doesn't allow follow up questions, but the host pressed him on the 'shared sacrifice' issue.  He had trouble dealing with that one too, a hard start for a program on which he was trying to push his call for war.  Really every member of the adminstration should be called on this war on terror hype in the end. I don't mean to make the argument that *only* lower income men and women die in this war against Iraq, but it is a transparent fact that those dying or getting their limbs blown off are not the relatives of anyone in the Bush administration.  How odd, such a major 'threat' is seen to exist, yet the leading war hawks' children stay home and choose not to fight. I can put up the link to the exchange later if folks like. steve