My generation knew how to deal with genocide," said Bob Dole, self-appointed expert on the Serbian/Kosovo issue. "On the ground." Well, thanks Bob, I'm ready to turn in my writer's quill for a gun and be drafted into a bloody conflict. Wouldn't want to be shown up by your generation.

Speaking of "up" Bob, my viagravated friend, you should shut up. A brief history lesson, since Dole's addled memory is obviously giving him trouble. Japan bombed us, we declared war on Japan and then Germany declared war on us and we all started killing each other. We didn't enter the war to stop the Holocaust. As in most wars, the brave young men on the battlefield mostly had no idea why they were getting shot at.

I'm really annoyed with old people. Slow driving, uninformed, opinionated loud mouths who think they're better than everybody else. Tom Brokaw wrote a book about them called The Greatest Generation. Ha! I respect my parents (who tried to stop a war) than my grandparents. Sure, my parents sold out in the end, but at least they tried.

I respect my own generation, who are well educated, enlightened, and often good people. I respect my peers who don't want to go out and kill people in foreign lands. All right, all right, without the World War II generation, we'd all be speaking German right now. without their efforts, the Holocaust would have been worse. I respect their accomplishments. They built a strong country after WWII, and I know that many of the advantages I've had in my life come from the toils of my first generation immigrant grandfather (who realized that a lot of his peers, members of that "greatest generation" were racist bastards, by the way).

But hey, we've given back. When I pay social security taxes, it's so my grandparents can collect their checks. I'm never going to see that money. It's a basic rule -- we're all asked to give to our society and we all take from it.

What I don't like is Bob Dole's implications--that our baby boomer president doesn't have the guts to do what's necessary. That our Gen-X soldiers won't take the fight to the ground. That they were tougher, more principled, more honorable than everyone who came later.

But before we defer to the wisdom of the WWII generation, let's look at what they've done to us--they were a racist generation who had to be forcibly changed by radicals in the 1950's and 1960's. They got us into a Cold War which nearly bankrupted us. They gave us Joe McCarthy and the Red Scare. They gave us a stalemate conflict in Korea and a lost war in Viet Nam.

They did a lot for us, that generation, but it wasn't all good. They're not perfect. They don't know everything. It's time for Bob Dole to shut up about policy. I can't stomach some guy who does commercials for Erectile Dysfunction pills tell people to go out and die with honor. he should leave the policy stuff to his wife, (I'll bet she's bored anyway...)

Talking about Bob Dole for too long gives Michael Maiello erectile dysfunction.