Rush Limbaugh Missed Opportunity on War

On Rush's show today, the topic of great presidents being defined by wars was brought up. One caller correctly stated that the most admired presidents were the ones who led us victoriously through times of war. (Reagan, though not fighting a conventional war, won the Cold War.)

A later caller disagreed, mistakenly pointing to Thomas Jefferson as a great president who didn't have to fight a war. Here's where Rush missed a golden opportunity.

Jefferson was the first president to actually press the might of the American military overseas in the case of the Barbary Coast pirates headquartered in Tripoli.

The history of events leading up to this action is very long and detailed (full story here), but the basic story is this: Our commercial and political strength were being threatened by Tripoli, and Jefferson, without a declaration of war by Congress, sent the fledgling U.S. armed forces to straighten the matter out.

(This is where the phrase in the Marine anthem "to the shores of Tripoli" comes from.)

Sound familiar? The nay-sayers who would criticize G.W. Bush should look back to our greatest statesmen, Thomas Jefferson, as proof of the validity of preemptive doctrine, and realize that inaction and isolationism only lead to 9/11's and doesn't prevent them.