Translating the phrase, "but I support the troops"

A reader mailed this very funny letter to James Taranto, who published it in Best of the Web Today:

Our item yesterday on the Democrats' antimilitary attitude prompted this response from reader Scott Wallace:

Your discussion reminded me of a friend's decision to follow anything negative he said with, 'But I support the troops!' If he didn't like the meal he just ate, he would follow his complaint with 'But I support the troops!' Complaints about a bad parking spot? 'But I support the troops!' It reminds me of an episode of 'Seinfeld' in which Jerry and George were suspected of being gay. Throughout the whole show, anytime anything potentially negative towards homosexuals was mentioned, someone would say, 'Not that there's anything wrong with that!' This would give them coverage to be as vicious or insensitive toward the gay lifestyle as they were toward anything else. In later interviews, Jerry Seinfeld admitted that the phrase was added in to the scripts late just to give them coverage. It was a wink to political correctness, and it was funny because you knew it was just a wink. Today's Democrats feel free to say anything they want about this war--including John Kerry's recent claims of war atrocities by the troops, and Howard Dean's feeling that the war is unwinnable--as long as they follow up with, 'But I support the troops!' Every time I hear them say they support the troops I think of that 'Seinfeld' episode. Both phrases ring hollow and insincere, calculated to give them coverage. Seinfeld's 'coverage' was funny because you knew he didn't really mean it, and such is becoming the case with the Democrats. Democrats don't seem to understand that they're in danger of becoming a tag-line joke.

As a fan of Seinfeld, and no fan at all of that soggy, meaningless phrase (when used by anti-War activists), I thought this was a great take on things.