Chris Healy is the chairman of the Connecticut Republican Party, and he fully embraces, in that role, the mission of converting any newsworthy event into partisan advantage, no matter how tenuous the connections insinuated or dubious the spin.

(And yes,

Democrats do it too.)

For Healy, such an occasion was President Barack Obama's speech last night about the administration's way forward in Afghanistan: a 30,000-strong infusion of troops, a push of civilian and diplomatic personnel, and a quest to close out our new Long War on something approaching honorable (read: face-saving) terms.

T

here wasn't much for the chairman to criticize in Obama's speech, primarily because the new president sounded so much like the last president that even Joe Lieberman thought he'd done a nice job. (Healy did object, mildly by his standards, to the setting of a timetable for withdrawal.)

So instead Healy took aim at Connecticut's Congressional delegation. Helpfully, they're all Democrats, even, technically, Lieberman.

In a

blog post this afternoon, Healy conjured his fullest powers of bluster. The post-speech responses from Rep. Joe Courtney, Sen. Chris Dodd and the rest "revealed themselves for what they truly are - morally weak and cowards in the face of challenge that threatens our civilization and nation," Healy declared.

These members of Congress are "resigned to defeat," he charged, by virtue of their skepticism of escalation.

Singled out for particular scorn was Rep. Chris Murphy, D-5th District, who was called on the carpet for the offense of saying that no matter the outcome of the debate over Afghanistan in Congress, it is that same Congress' "sacred duty" to provide support for troops in the field and care and solace to their families back home.

This, intoned the chairman was a case of Murphy "wrapping himself in the families of the military."

(Notwithstanding the metaphor abuse, are we to understand that Republicans aren't into that sort of thing anymore?)

And he topped off the sundae the way conservatives and Republicans have long attempted to invoke civilian cloture on meaningful disagreement and journalistic inquiry, ever since our struggle with Islamist extremism and terrorism blew right back out at us from the graveyard of Reagan/Bush/Clinton-era Middle Eastern policy eight years ago.

No, not a Sandy Berger joke. Healy posted a video clip about Neville Chamberlain and appeasement of Hitler in 1938.

What makes this so amusing is that Healy's objecting to skepticism about the usefulness of military escalation that is just as strong among a lot of Republicans.

One is Sean Sullivan, the former commander of Submarine Base New London and Courtney's challenger in 2008. Healy may recall that Sullivan argued back then for a more detached, "naval" strategy in Afghanistan, using targeted missile strikes and incursions rather than a land occupation to try to turn back the Taliban and disrupt al Qaeda's operations.

(If anything, the relevant observation, or criticism, of Courtney's current position is that it's now a lot closer to Sullivan's than it was back during the last campaign.)

Here's another voice calling for reconsideration of the Obama troop-push - an opinion Healy portrays as essentially traitorous.

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"The President's strategy appears to rely too much on the idea that a troop surge can do for Afghanistan what it did for Iraq...

"[/naviga:font][/naviga:font][naviga:font size="3"][naviga:font size="2"]Afghanistan is not Iraq, and the same prescription of a troop surge cannot be counted on to achieve the same results. Afghanistan presents numerous, unique challenges - no history of a strong centralized government or security force, intense rivalries among tribes, an economy in shambles, and grueling terrain, to name a few. Further, this war is not accommodating to the sort of urban 'clear and hold' strategy that was so successful during the surge in Iraq.[/naviga:font][/naviga:font][naviga:font size="3"][naviga:font size="2"].. [/naviga:font][/naviga:font]

"[naviga:font size="3"][naviga:font size="2"]America's only vital interest in Afghanistan is to deny al Qaeda terrorists a secure base from which they can train and launch attacks on Americans and our allies. But these terrorist encampments are highly mobile, and large fighting forces are not necessarily nimble enough to track and destroy them...[/naviga:font][/naviga:font]

[naviga:font size="3"][naviga:font size="2"] "The U.S. should seriously explore a fundamentally different approach similar to one successfully employed by President Reagan to combat the heroin epidemic. In 1981, President Reagan gave protected market status to poppy farmers in Turkey and India allowing the U.S. to purchase the raw product for conversion to medicinal uses. Now, we should consider contracting with tribal leaders in Afghanistan to relieve their economic dependence on the Taliban, dry up Taliban finances, reduce heroin supply, and build lasting economic partnerships with the Afghan people[/naviga:font][/naviga:font]..."

All that comes not from one of those objectionable surrenderist Democrats, of course, but from former U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, a three-term Republican congressman, CIA and Army veteran and a current leading candidate for the Republican nomination to take on Dodd in 2010. Much of what Simmons says largely squares with doubts that lawmakers like Courtney (who beat him in 2006) and other Republicans have also shared. Other parts of that statement clearly part ways with respected foreign policy thinkers in both major parties.

But Simmons is not singled out by the good chairman, as were the rest, for condemnation or comparison to the misguided British prime minister who thought he could strike a deal with Adolf Hitler to spare Great Britain another war. Simmons has been omitted from the list of those whose doubts about the wisdom of escalating the war must be seen as proof that they are really cowards underneath, dupes willing to sell out their nation to avoid a fight.

And that omission didn't happen because Simmons is right, though he may be. It didn't happen because Courtney and Dodd and Murphy are wrong, though that certainly might be the case.

Republican doubts don't figure into the matter because the best and wisest course of action for the United States in Afghanistan isn't actually what matters to Healy - or to any of the other professional spittle-fleckers who are shouting their way through this on the airwaves and in press releases across the country.

What matters to Healy is his party, and the next election, and the fact that Simmons is a Republican. No amount of bombast will obscure that. It's not conviction about the way to fight this war that's really fueling Healy's invective about these questions, just politics. Just business, baby.