Democratic rooster – or chickenhawk?

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt led the United States into the Second World War after the nation came under unprovoked attack in 1941. But because, as a young man, he had not deferred his Harvard education to serve with the American military in the Boxer Rebellion or in the Philippines, the greatest of Democratic presidents was, in fact, a chickenhawk.

The same could be said of another celebrated Democratic president, Woodrow Wilson, who led the United States into the First World War on a "crusade for democracy," but who in his younger years didn't volunteer for the Indian Wars.

Yes, they were chickenhawks – at least according to the political classification system used by today's purported stewards of the Jeffersonian-Jacksonian tradition at Democrats.com, who gleefully hang the term on anyone in the opposing party who did not serve in the military but today supports an armed defense against terror.

Such is what passes today for the "loyal" opposition. If the partisan Copperheads who tried to undermine the Union in the Civil War were transported to the present day, this would be their web site. If you respect the keen political savvy of Michael Moore or Barbra Streisand, you'll lap it up with a spoon.

But for many of the rest of us, Democrats.com offers further proof of what's now called the Dowd Rule: No one who thinks George W. Bush is stupid is as smart as George W. Bush.