The Washinton Post had two OpEds on Tuesday that, I believe, unintentionally reveal a certain strained, stretched quality in liberal arguments these days.
In a generally interesting piece about the dilemma of the Democrats now both is and is not similar to 1968, Harold Meyerson, editor at large of The American Prospect, has this to say about the front-running John Kerry:
As he did in Vietnam, Kerry has had a complicated but largely successful war. Alone among the candidates, he articulated what is probably the party’s midpoint position — a kind of exasperated ambivalence — on the conflict. Voting for last October’s congressional resolution authorizing war, but continuing his criticisms of the “belligerent unilateralism” of Bush foreign policy, Kerry opened himself to charges of opportunism. He nonetheless remained the only Democratic presidential hopeful to come through the war without taking positions that would estrange the Democratic primary electorate or the general electorate in the fall of ’04 — which is precisely what 1992 presidential candidate Bill Clinton did in taking almost self-negating positions on the 1991 Gulf War.
Before I comment on this, let me first note how E.J. Dionne begins his column:
If you think government is useless, evil and unnecessary, ponder those pictures of looters in Iraq ransacking homes, hotels, even hospitals. Feel for that sobbing official of the National Museum of Antiquities, aghast at the destruction of irreplaceable historical artifacts by an angry mob.
The lesson the looters teach is basic, and it is usually ignored: The alternative to tyranny is not the abolition of government. Absent a government committed to the protection of rights, there are no rights. Without government, individuals have no way to vindicate their rights to property, to basic personal liberty, to life itself.
This lesson is timely. On and about April 15, anti-government and anti-tax groups annually devote much energy to trying to convince Americans that we live under a rapacious, money-grabbing, rights-destroying regime.
Now maybe it’s just me, but I think the Democrats may be in even worse shape than is generally recognized when an editor of a leading liberal publication fondly and favorably describes the Democratic front-runner as demonstrating a Clintonian ability to make activists on both sides of a major issue think he agrees with them,and E.J. Dionne, whom I find to be one of the most appealing and usually thoughtful liberal pundits, write as though the opposition to be discredited comes from … Libertarians, and extreme ones at that. Really, how many Republicans, much less conservative Republicans, oppose the police, for crying out loud?
‘ambivalence’?!?
Like, whatever, man
TAP is a “leading liberal publication?” And I thought it was just unreadable.
As for E.J. Dionne, I think his brain must have slipped a cog while writing that piece. Maybe there’s a problem with the ventilation in his office and he wasn’t receiving enough oxygen. Either you favor Big Government or Anarchy? Sheesh.
I don’t think Dionne was really just going after libertarian/anarchist extremists. My bet is that when he says “anti-government and anti-tax groups,” he means “anyone who wants lower taxes and/or less government than I do.”