A real problem has emerged......a Seattle conservative has turned out to be against the war. This creates a number of logistical problems for anti war demonstrations......there's no one to throw tomatoes at; no one house or office they can march on etc.
Therefore, a group of Seattle liberals are meeting with Mr. Gold in order to turn him around and get him to support the war; I mean, that's the only decent thing for him to do. After all, the liberals have to have someone to trash. <g>
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The Seattle Times
Local News: Sunday, January 12, 2003
Local conservative at odds with brethren in opposing Iraq war
By Matthew Craft
Seattle Times staff reporter
Philip Gold likes to say he has impeccable conservative credentials.
Gold spent 10 years in the Marine Corps, has written for right-wing magazines, served as an adviser on Steve Forbes' 2000 presidential run and spent decades at like-minded think tanks.
After a lifetime in the conservative intelligentsia, the former Georgetown University history professor has broken ranks over the Bush administration's war on terror and, on Monday, resigned his post as a defense analyst at Seattle's conservative Discovery Institute.
But you won't find him out in the streets chanting "no blood for oil" or planting a "No Iraq War" sign in his yard. Gold has taken to calling himself an anti-war movement of one.
"Conservatives have lost their soul," he said. "I can't find the core principles anymore — limited government, commitment to civil liberties. These younger conservatives have lost their connection with reality. They're violating the basic ideas that go back to Edmund Burke. What happened to the sense of fallible humanity?"
Gold's break mirrors a national trend: Prominent, old-line conservatives have become the Bush administration's newest and often harshest critics. Both Bob Barr, the former congressman from Georgia, and former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, from Texas, have joined up with the American Civil Liberties Union to fight against new programs — such as the Defense Department's domestic intelligence-gathering effort, Total Information Awareness — and against new laws that would allow for domestic spying.
They distrust "big government" and worry that the conservative embrace of an American empire will corrode the values they cherish. "You don't get greatness by pushing people around," Gold said. "You get it by doing great things."
The 'bobblehead'
In dark suit, spectacles, and with an unruly, gray beard, Gold appears often on KING-5 broadcasts, looking as though he had just dropped in from the 19th century. "I'm one of their 'bobbleheads,' " he said of KING-5, which brings him on as a commentator on terrorism and defense issues.
He speaks and writes in pithy phrases, smart sound bites. In September, Gold announced his split with conservatism in a Seattle Weekly article. His disillusionment came gradually and was sealed by his sense that the Bush administration's foreign policy was run by people in love with their own ideas.
"One of the reasons I'm fed up with conservatism is that it's lacking pessimism," Gold said. "War with Iraq is a lousy idea. When we invade Iraq, are we just going to tell them to act like good little boys and girls? It's just nonsense."
The article rankled Discovery's president and founder, Bruce Chapman, who objected to Gold's use of the institute's name. The squabble ended with Gold's resignation, which he describes as "an amicable divorce." The two are longtime friends, and Gold, in the short term at least, gets to keep his office.
Chapman failed to return numerous telephone calls seeking comment.
"In general, I agree with Phil," said Robert Cihak, who sits on Discovery's board of directors. "I'm not very comfortable with the idea that we can reform Iraq by destroying it and rebuilding it. I don't think we should be in the nation-destroying and nation-building business."
Cihak called Gold's resignation "unfortunate." The conservative umbrella, he said, "should be big enough for Phil."
John Carlson, a conservative radio talk-show host and former Republican candidate for governor, had Gold on his show, where he was pitted against Dan Savage, editor of The Stranger, an alternative weekly.
"I like Phil," Carlson said. "But I disagree with him. I think what George W. Bush is doing is in the tradition of Churchill and Ronald Reagan. He's facing down a threat and is clearly articulating why America is going to defend its security and its values."
'Blame America first'
Although he finds much to criticize in how America treats the world and in its past support for dictators, Gold has never found the anti-war movement appealing. He dismisses groups like Not in Our Name as the "blame-America-first crowd," people he says are engaged in protest as therapy.
As he describes it, he joined the Marine Corps in 1970 to spite the prevailing anti-war sentiment on the campus at Yale, where he was a student. "I made a lot of instant enemies, but I had a sense that the people against the war would do more damage than the war itself."
What's needed now, he said, is a third party that offers an effective opposition and rational analysis.
Instead, he believes the anti-war movement will fail as long as it takes "an America-is-the-root-of-evil approach." This summer, Gold was invited to take part in a panel discussion on "just war" at St. James Cathedral. During the question-and-answer period, a man in the audience asked if the United States, like history's other empires, will eventually be torn apart.
"A nun on the panel said, 'Yes, an American empire will die,' " Gold recalled.
"And a good chunk of the audience actually cheered. ... I let it go by, because I didn't want to explode on stage. I just sat there for a minute, thinking, 'Do you realize what you just applauded — the demise of our country?' "
That's the problem with the mainstream protest movement, he said. "There's no sense of the good we've done or the good we've left to do."
Matthew Craft: 206-464-2194 or mcraft@seattletimes.com. |
