Byzantium's Shores: chronicling the misadventures of an overalls-clad hippie

(On Screen): One of SDB's favorite past-times is to examine a left-wing, generally anti-war, argument and identify what he perceives to be a commission of one of the "informal logical fallacies" within the argument's construction -- Tu quoque, perhaps, or more usually a "strawman", wherein one argues against a formulation of an opponent's view that isn't entirely accurate, in hopes that the terms can be shifted. So it's interesting to look down to his "Updates" that follow the article, where he links to various people who have commented on this particular post. Grouping several left-wing comments together, SDB says this:

Update: Ted Barlow and Kieran Healy and Tom Bogg comment. (Bottom line: I'm a raving paranoid. The French are really our best friends; they're actually better friends than the Brits.) Atrios, too. And Kevin Drum.

That snarky comment of his in the middle is intriguing. Following each of these links, I find that each of these bloggers does, in fact, think that SDB is, to put it mildly, a bit off his rocker in this post. (I tend to agree. I mean, he actually wonders here about the possibility of France launching a nuclear strike against the United States, for God's sake.) But, not one of the linked bloggers says anything at all defending France's status as an ally, or comes within a San Diego mile of suggesting, in even the most veiled terms, that France is a better ally than the British. Talk about a Strawman.

(By the way, I find it interesting that warbloggers of every stripe will engage in just about any kind of conspiracy-theory they can concoct in their attempts to explain France's opposition to the upcoming war -- France is secretly allied with Saddam! France has given Saddam the raw materials for his weapons! Chirac and Saddam are genetic twins! France may nuke us to keep their complicity in Iraq secret! -- but if anyone on the left suggests that maybe, just maybe, the Bush Administration's motivation for war in Iraq isn't solely based on Goodness and Virtue and Striking A Blow For All That Is Good In The World, well, that's just crazy talk!!!