Stating the Obvious

Tom Friedman:

Liberals don't want to talk about Iraq because, with a few exceptions, they thought the war was wrong and deep down don't want the Bush team to succeed.

I think that's right, and I've got a lot of quotes from liberals to prove it. It's not true of pro-war liberals, obviously, and it's not true of many anti-war but pro-American liberals. But there is a certain kind of liberal who just wants to be personally vindicated, and he actively roots against America just so that, once the bodies have stopped falling, he can say, "See? I was right all along."

That's a pretty high price for an I told you so.

But it's not just about personal vindication, either. Many liberals consider the US to be a positive force for evil, violence, and repression in the world, and they don't want the US to have the capability of inflicting its miseries and horrors on the rest of the kite-flying world. A defeat in Iraq would sharply curb our projection of power, and that's ultimately what they want.

To quibble with Friedman: He says that conservatives don't talk about the current up-cycle of violence in Iraq, because we think it's our job to just "applaud" whatever the Bush Administration does.

That's not really true. It's a combination of things. 1, it's depressing and sad, and 2, it's a storm that must be weathered. Yes, we could endlessly discuss the storm and how terrible it is, but ultimately it doesn't change the fact that storms will come and you don't run from storms.

posted by Ace at 01:37 PM

| Access Comments