Is the Union-Tribune's James O. Goldsborough. Jim's a smart enough guy, who sometimes just likes to be a pain in the butt. In Goldsborough's latest column, he takes up what is perhaps the lamest, most inane and ludicrous of the extreme anti-war left's claims -- that the war on Iraq is a modern-day crusade.

George W. Bush's Iraq war will be America's first religious war, one inspired by groups of Christian fundamentalists and Jewish neoconservatives, a coalition whose zeal for war is as great as that of the original crusaders.

The origin of the crusades was a 1095 meeting in Autun, France, where 36 bishops made the first vows to "go to Jerusalem." Four years later, the crusaders took Jerusalem, only to see it recaptured by Saladin. The First Crusade launched centuries of war between crusaders and indigenous peoples from North Africa to Russia.

Today, the idea is to "go to Baghdad," but is rooted in a the same desire: to serve Jerusalem (Israel) and remake the Middle East. Like the crusaders, the new coalition represents the wedding of religious zeal and military power, always a fatal connection.

Frankly, it's sad that a "serious" columnist like Goldsborough would even bother with this drivel -- must've been a slow week.

*UPDATE* San Diegans have responded to Goldsborough's drivel -- including the head of the local ADL.