kb, the following fits in with the WSJ editorial you posted:
opinionjournal.com
Dispatch From Barbara Lee's District
We hate to say it, but when California's Rep. Barbara Lee cast the lone dissenting vote against last week's resolution approving the use of force against America's enemies, she may have just been reflecting the views of her constituents. The Alameda Times-Star sends a pair of reporters out to local high schools and gathers a series of disgustingly smug quotes:
"It didn't happen in Oakland, it could have but it didn't, so I don't feel scared or nothing. Why should I go fight in a war and die for nothing." -- Hieu Le, 15, Castlemont High School
"I'm not risking my life for that, I love myself too much. If they came after me I would have to run." -- Amir Kellogg, 17
"How are you going to defend a nation if that nation can't defend against things like homelessness? I'm not in a rush to help our country because our country is already messed up." -- Jamaal Germaine, 15, McClymonds High School
"I think the United States deserves it. It's pretty sad for the poor people, but the United States does the same thing. We're probably going to do the same thing after this. We're not going to send anybody into the country, we're just going to bomb them like they did us." -- Patrick Rizzo, Berkeley High School
Berkeley High, you may remember, is the school that banned military recruiters from campus. "I felt it wasn't appropriate to have weapons simulators on the high school campus given all the violence at schools recently," Berkeley school board member Joaquin Rivera said at the time.
'Ballsy'
One Cara DeGette, a columnist for the Colorado Springs Independent and sister of Rep. Diana DeGette, praises the hijackers as "ballsy" and favorably cites "noted dissident Noam Chomsky," who has accused the U.S. of "international terrorism."
Chomsky is an MIT linguist who is regularly showered with honorary degrees from places like Columbia University. Here's his take: "The terrorist attacks were major atrocities. In scale they may not reach the level of many others, for example, Clinton's bombing of the Sudan with no credible pretext, destroying half its pharmaceutical supplies and killing unknown numbers of people (no one knows, because the US blocked an inquiry at the UN and no one cares to pursue it). Not to speak of much worse cases, which easily come to mind."
This sort of moral equivalence can be found on the right as well as the left. Writes Jude Wanniski in an open letter to House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt:
Before we bomb anything, we should first be sure we are not blowing up aspirin factories or schools or hospitals. We should never have bombed countries with whom we have diplomatic relations. It is because of this bipartisanship that our press corps has been corrupted, to the point where it has become blind to the evil acts we commit as a nation. Our people have no idea why last Tuesday happened because they have never been told of the bipartisan injustices we commit. . . .
Scrap this kind of mindless bipartisanship and debate the reasons the suicide bombers had to give up their lives. They were not religious fanatics. They were "Muslim McVeighs." And if you decide not to take the trouble, you can bet there will be more of them on the way. |
