Instapundit -
ROSS TERRILL WRITES in The Boston Globe:
boston.com
"DEMOCRACY IS FRIEND to the common man and authoritarianism is a crutch for millionaires with a villa in Italy -- right? Maybe no longer. Lady Liberty has acquired a new dancing partner. Politics in both Europe and the United States have unhitched the left from its trusted partner, democracy. American liberals now often spurn blue collar opinion that is democracy's fuel. They mostly reject global idealism that is liberty's post-communism vocation. This has allowed a Republican president to make democracy his cause. On the dance floor of the 21st century, the right embraces Lady Liberty. . . .
What a strange moment for the left to lose faith in democracy. The Soviet Union and other Leninist dictatorships are gone in a puff of smoke. Democracy is taking root in Latin America. South Korea, Indonesia, Taiwan, Mongolia, and Thailand are all newly democratic. Throughout the 20th century, war and authoritarianism were inseparable. For 30 years, democracy and free markets have surged and no war has occurred anywhere on the scale ofKorea and Vietnam, let alone World War I and World War II.
Seymour Hersh recently told "Democracy Now!" radio that America was in a bad way because "eight or nine neoconservatives" have "grabbed the government." Not mentioning that Bush was elected by 51 percent of the voters, Hersh did detect a ray of hope. One "salvation may be the economy," Hersh said regrettably, "It's going to go very bad, folks. You know, if you have not sold your stocks and bought property in Italy, you better do it quick."
A left that sees a lousy economy as political salvation and frets about stocks and a villa in Italy is not the idealistic, worker-respecting left anymore. Certainly it is not a believer in democracy."
Nope. And, as I keep repeating, this is no strategy for building a Democratic majority. Similarly, stuff like this is comforting to the true-believers, but it's not likely to win votes. (Via Peg Kaplan.) And read this, too.
This is where I have to agree and disagree simultaneously with Hugh Hewitt, who writes about Peter Beinart:
Peter is without question the very best face of the Democratic Party. Folks love him because he is earnest and very committed to Harry Truman's Democratic Party, which is a lot like being committed to the Edsel.
But the Edsel was a bomb from day one. No, more like the Nash Rambler -- a good car, popular in its time, that's no longer made. The Truman / FDR style of muscular Democratic thought has been supplanted by the '68-ers in the Democratic party, and their ideological descendants at MoveOn, MediaMatters, etc. They lack the essential faith in America possessed by their predecessors, and by the voters they'd like to win over. Beinart's views are marginal in the Democratic Party -- heck, the kind of patriotism that Barney Frank and Chris Dodd demonstrated in Davos is indiscernible in the MoveOn / MediaMatters end of the Democratic Party -- while the Seymour Hersh Vietnam-nostalgia strain runs strong. That's bad for the Democrats, and bad for America, but it's nonetheless the case.
UPDATE: Reader Mark Gunnion, on the other hand, emails:
Fuck you.
Your side is the Taliban side.
I hope all of you Bush-loving idiots wake up some day to how you have been hoodwinked into empowering 12th century religious fanatics - in OUR country.
But I doubt it will happen.
You got your $32,000 tax cut, so you'll put up with a little preaching.
YOU are the American Taliban.
Nice to see that the Lefties are retaining their sense of perspective. |
