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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Suma who wrote (28863)	2/10/2005 10:09:48 AM
From: Bill	Respond to of 90947

People who deny a left wing bias in the media are just silly.

To: Suma who wrote (28863)	2/11/2005 1:25:39 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 90947

Will the Truman Democrats Please Stand Up... ...if there are any left. by Tom Donnelly 02/09/2005 5:11:00 PM You'd think it would be a great time to be a small-L liberal: human freedom is on the march in such unlikely places as Iraq, Afghanistan, and even among the Palestinians. The president of the United States can't seem to go five minutes without praising the virtues of liberty, and realpolitikers have been banished to the policy wilderness. Liberal principles have never before been so proudly proclaimed in framing U.S. foreign and security policy. The only problem for liberals, of course, is that the architect of all this is named George W. Bush, and this poses a considerable conundrum. It's been instructive to watch the shifts of opinion at The New Republic, long the flagship of responsible foreign policy liberalism in the Democratic party. Originally strongly supportive of the invasion of Iraq, the magazine's writers have become increasingly disenchanted as the interest-based arguments for the war--Iraq's presumed stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction--have collapsed. In fine retreat-from-the-face-of-success form, New Republic associate editor Spencer Ackerman argues in a front-page essay in this week's issue that the recent elections are actually the perfect opportunity for the United States to bug out from Iraq. Ackerman asserts that it's the time to give the insurgents "a light at the end of the tunnel," as though our view of victory and theirs somehow converges. Ackerman mourns that the Bush administration--and the majority of Iraqis, evidently--did not heed Sunni calls to postpone the elections, claims that the elections are dangerously illegitimate and--get ready for it--will create even more violence as growing numbers of Sunnis come to accept the results. The insurgents, Ackerman writes, "will fight even more ferociously if the political process receives Sunni legitimacy." Ackerman, who also writes a blog devoted to hyping whatever bad news is coming out of Baghdad on a day-to-day basis, thus captures one intellectual response to the Bush administration's foreign policy liberalism: absolute conviction that it does not, cannot, and will never work. An alternative response to the Bush administration's liberalism emanates from the Center for American Progress, the brainchild of former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta. On the occasion of Condoleezza Rice's make-nice speech in Paris, the Center published a critique by Suzanne Nossel asserting that the left had to "take back freedom." The Bush administration, Nossel concedes, "has adopted traditional progressive principles and policies, such as fostering liberal democracy and nation-building abroad, and put its own imprint on them to the point where progressives have virtually abandoned concepts that they used to develop and own. The concept of spreading liberty did not feature in the progressive punditry's criticism of the State of the Union." No kidding. Minority leaders Sen. Harry Reid and Rep. Nancy Pelosi spent their rebuttal time whining about the costs of war in Iraq and urging withdrawal as fast as possible. For Nossel, this was enough to raise the question: "Shouldn't the left cheer the administration's embrace of liberal principles?" Alas, Nossel informs us, the answer is no. Her rationale isn't to claim the Bush administration's commitment to liberalism is insincere or catastrophically counterproductive, as Ackerman does, but rather to attack it on the margins. For starters, she takes to task President Bush's "selectivity"--also known as "strategy"--which has left freedom-lovers in Zimbabwe, Russia, and Saudi Arabia "out of luck." But Nossel must surely recognize that the U.S. government can't eliminate every outpost of tyranny at once (although, ironically, the president's inaugural was criticized for championing precisely this). And if the Bush administration can't help everyone equally and simultaneously, what criteria should it use in setting priorities? Nossel doesn't offer any prescription, other than to say that President Bush doesn't have the right one. And there's that annoying necessity to exercise power and, horror of horrors, from time to time, military force, in the face of tyranny. So "even a triumph like the vote in Iraq is not enough to convince the world that the administration is using liberal rhetoric as principle rather than as a euphemism for neo-imperialism." Rather than using the U.S. military, "the State Department's diplomatic corps should be the frontline of efforts to fortify vulnerable democracies worldwide." Apparently liberalism can only be principled if you're not willing to fight for it. If the Republicans have not yet fully come 'round to being the party of Lincoln again, the Democrats have never been further estranged from the tradition of Truman. It remains to be seen if liberals in the Democratic party can fashion a coherent response to President Bush's foreign policy agenda. For now, however, the cause of international liberalism is no longer theirs. Tom Donnelly is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a contributing writer to The Daily Standard. weeklystandard.com

To: Suma who wrote (28863)	2/11/2005 2:45:59 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 90947

Suma, care to critique this? Arrogant censorship David Limbaugh February 11, 2005 townhall.com An incident at Hudson High School in Massachusetts provides an object lesson in the occasional arrogance of liberal bias. A group of students decided to form a conservative club as "a counterweight" to the majority political viewpoint at the school. Student Chris Bowler put up posters to publicize the club's first meeting in December. Within hours, school administrators reportedly removed the posters because they contained a link to the Website of High School Conservative Clubs of America (HSCCA), a national organization for high school conservative clubs. HSCCA's Website included links to videos of beheadings by Iraqi insurgents, and the high school would not allow even an indirect reference to those links. It also blocked access to the HSCCA's Website on school computers. "The material was way beyond what I believe the school should be advertising," said Principal John Stapelfeld. What? Just because the school permits students to use its facilities to promote something doesn't mean the school itself is endorsing it. In fact, just because the local club listed the HSCCA's Web address doesn't mean it endorses everything HSCCA endorses. But for the sake of discussion, let's concede that the school's club was encouraging the viewing of those videos. What in the world is wrong with that, and what business was it of the principal's to censor the posters? Principal Stapelfeld insists his political bias didn't enter into his decision. According to the Boston Globe, he was initially "thrilled" about the idea of a conservative club that would spark political discussions. So, what's his beef with the video links? The Globe reports that he "said the brutal images implicitly condoned violence as a way of 'solving problems' and did not reflect 'mainstream conservatism'" -- as if this liberal were an authority on mainstream conservatism and as if it's fine to censor farther-right conservatism. When I first read this I did a double take, thinking I'd misunderstood. How can links to videos of beheadings of innocent people by terrorists -- unless shown by terrorists to potential recruits -- be construed as condoning violence, much less as a means of solving problems? It doesn't take a genius to understand that the HSCCA was linking to those horrendous videos to show how evil the terrorists are and how they use violence purely for the sake of violence and terror, without provocation and certainly not as a means of "solving problems." Let's give Stapelfeld the benefit of the doubt and assume he got himself confused on that one. Perhaps his other statements express his concerns more clearly. According to the Globe, he felt that showcasing these violent acts "did not address the more central problem of growing anti-Americanism abroad." "Unfortunately, said Stapelfeld, "we really haven't dealt with the fact that we're not well received in the world anywhere." In this revealing utterance, we have the principal's naked liberal mindset on full display. What he is really saying is that he -- like so many other liberals -- believes the Bush Administration has alienated the rest of the world because of its "unwarranted" military action against Iraq. And by promoting the viewing of these videos, his students would be engaging in offensive behavior that will further alienate other nations. But on what remotely legitimate basis would other nations have to be offended by American students encouraging Americans and other peoples to view videos the terrorists themselves produced and distributed, advertising their own violence? How could genuinely civilized human beings of other nations take issue with civilized Americans for reminding the world, via unedited terrorist-produced videos, of the abject depravity and brutality of the terrorists? Indeed, isn't it necessary for us to focus on their inhumanity from time to time to avoid becoming desensitized to it? Perhaps what really bothers the principal (and other liberals) deep down is that by showing the terrorists in their true element the videos demonstrate how utterly justified our cause in Iraq is -- a reality that liberals simply cannot abide. How dare we use the terrorists' own videos to turn people against them? I suppose that instead, we should be trying to negotiate with the sweethearts. In short, the principal is betraying his own transparent political prejudices. But what alarms me significantly more than his bias or even the high-handed censorship it produced is his arrogant obliviousness to it. This absence of individual and collective self-reflection is all too often the signature of today's liberal, who apparently believes his positions are so pure that his motives are beyond scrutiny. Memo to Principal Stapelfeld: Your wrongful removal of the posters is only exceeded by your refusal to own up to your reasons for doing it. David Limbaugh is a syndicated columnist who blogs at DavidLimbaugh.com ©2005 Creators Syndicate, Inc. townhall.com