David Frum has an interesting point. How will the Democratic candidates react to the London mobs? They want to keep their anti-war followers happy. But they will outrage the rest of us if they don't condemn them.
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LONDON CALLING
NR Readers Write
A number of readers offered a very astute response to my forebodings of yesterday. They said, to summarize: “The analogy you’re looking for, David, isn’t Chicago 1968 – it’s Caracas 1958. When a Venezuelan mob attacked Nixon’s car and nearly killed him, Americans saw his courage and cool. Nixon returned to receive a standing ovation from both houses of Congress.”
It’s an interesting point. Although the optics of the president’s UK visit will be ugly for him, on further thought they may well turn out in the end to be more dangerous for the Democratic front-runner, Howard Dean. If next week’s visit to London goes as I fear it will, the Democratic candidates for president will have to decide what, if anything, to say about it. In 1958, Senator John F. Kennedy condemned the Caracas rioters and joined the ovation for Nixon. I doubt that any of this year’s crop will have the wisdom and discipline to do that. They will be tempted either to keep silent – or else possibly to blame Bush for the rampaging of left-wing and Islamic extremist mobs. Satisfying as that will be to them, it will also tend to identify them with those mobs.
In 1952, Dwight Eisenhower skillfully condemned the Truman administration’s conduct of the Korean war without ever flirting in any way with isolationism or (as goes without saying) the anti-American hard left. The antiwar Democrats of the 1960s and 1970s lacked Eisenhower’s skill – and discredited their party for a generation. The antiwar Democrats of the 00s are repeating the mistakes of their youth. It won’t be just the American flag that the London protesters will burn – it will also be the last remaining vestiges of the antiwar movement’s image. After next week, Americans will see that movement for what it is – and will almost certainly come closer to seeing those national Democrats who have lent aid and comfort to that movement for what they are.
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