August 21, 2006
Second time since 1860...
JunkYardblog notes this, from Lefty Kevin Drum...
[Beinart:]…we need to engage more energetically with the war on terror and criticize illiberal regimes more harshly.
Maybe so. But this is something that’s nagged at me for some time. On the one hand, I think Beinart is exactly right. For example, should I be more vocal in denouncing Iran? Sure. It’s a repressive, misogynistic, theocratic, terrorist-sponsoring state that stands for everything I stand against. Of course I should speak out against them.
And yet, I know perfectly well that criticism of Iran is not just criticism of Iran. Whether I want it to or not, it also provides support for the Bush administration’s determined and deliberate effort to whip up enthusiasm for a military strike....
Good thing he's not an American...why, he might feel a duty to support his country and its leaders in time of war! Fortunately he can concentrate on the real war, against George W Bush, and those insane barbarians who dare to claim that it's not 1973 any more.
What sickos the "core" Democrats are. It makes my blood boil to think of the 20th century, when Democrats led this country through war after bloody war, presiding over the deaths of hundreds-of-thousands of Americans, plus millions of our enemies, an flattening whole cities filled with millions of civilians. And what did the Republicans do? Why, we supported our country and its leaders in time of war, of course. We are Americans. Wilson or FDR or Truman or Johnson never had to worry that Republicans would vote against war appropriations, or undercut our troops, or demand that war be fought without casualties, or fought to lunatic standards of perfection and niceness. Or that we would convey with broad hints that our enemies should not waver, because we might win the next election and capitulate forthwith.
And now, for the second time since 1860, we have a Republican leading during a serious war. And what do the Democrats do? Betray their country of course. For the second time. (Or you could call it the third time, since leadership during the Vietnam War passed from Dems to Republicans. They betrayed us then too, in the very war they had got us into, and betrayed millions of Vietnamese to death or concentration camps.)
Posted by John Weidner at August 21, 2006 09:09 PMIt seems to be standard. I engaged in a similar argument and the response was the same — "I won't say because it might help President Bush".
Posted by: Annoying Old Guy at August 22, 2006 10:11 AMI can't find a link for it, but I highly recommend Shelby Steele's editorial in the Wall Street Journal today. Here is a taste:
"But the international left is in its own contest with American exceptionalism. It keeps charging Israel and America with oppression hoping to mute American power. And this works in today's world because the oppression script is so familiar and because American power cringes when labeled with sins of the white Western past. Yet whenever the left does this, it makes room for extremism by lending legitimacy to its claim oppression."
Posted by: Mike Plaiss at August 22, 2006 10:51 AMThat last line should obviously read, "legitimacy to its claims of oppression."
Posted by: Mike Plaiss at August 22, 2006 10:57 AMI like your post, John, but let's not forget that Bush Senior betrayed the Shiites and Kurds after Gulf War One. One shortcoming of our democracy, with its frequent changes of regime and its unpredictable political passions, is that America tends to be fickle and unreliable in its dealings with other countries.
Posted by: Alan Sullivan at August 23, 2006 05:36 AMTrue. And it's a humbling thought. And I voted for him.
Posted by: John Weidner at August 23, 2006 05:41 AMI don't know why anyone pays attention to Drum's ramblings. The guy doesn't know the meaning of the word "reason". In this article he tries to explain how the wealthy of 2040 are somehow obligated by decisions he says were made by the wealthy of the 1980's:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0127/p09s01-coop.html
