Posted by
ClearCommentary.com on Friday, July 18, 2008 3:00:46 PM
As these columns have periodically lamented, old-style Democrats are an endangered lot these days. Indeed, when a life-long stalwart Democrat such as Sen. Joseph Lieberman is compelled to change his party affiliation to "Democrat-Independent," it's tantamount to a diagnosis of political pathology.
There's a piece on today's Huffington Post by Roberto Lovato, which is yet another dyspeptic reminder of how far to the left the party has migrated. The quote below is emblematic of precisely how distorted the lens of liberalism has become:
George W. Bush and Dick Cheney deserve much of the blame for the militaristic depredations that threaten the country and planet alike. But we ignore at our own risk the vast and well-rooted networks of political, military and economic interests that have long benefited from and enabled the machinations of empire. Our failure to push Obama to attack rather than promote U.S. militarism and empire will most certainly leave us vulnerable to a new era of "change," an era driven by the hydra-headed global dragon of free trade and militarism.
Makes you want to reach for a drink. We could adduce the fact that after the thorough-going failure of President Clinton's Agreed Framework with North Korea, that manifest threat to civilization has been effectively defanged by 6-party talks (not the unilateral talks Clinton championed); we could celebrate the fact that Saddam Hussein is deposed and dead, along with his two henchmen sons, and that the hundreds of thousands of innocents he murdered have been avenged, not to mention the fact that Iraq is on track towards a government of incipient self-determination; we could discuss the stunning fact that in the seven years since 9/11 America has not been attacked again, something on 9/12 that no one would have believed.
But since one of the hallmarks--symptoms?--of modern liberalism is its imperviousness to reason, none of this matters, because their policy goals always trump facts. Lovato and his "machinations of empire" is stuff right out of Noam Chompsky's active imagination and is a curious observation since, according to The Freedom House, more people worldwide live in some degree of freedom than ever before. Moreover, it's an irrefutable fact that the United States, with its remarkable ability to project soft and hard power, economically and militarily, is responsible for a large measure of those successes.
So, why do the Lovatos of the world seem so eager to excoriate President Bush, whose foreign policy has so positively impacted the world? Why, indeed, do they lament globalization and free trade that has lifted places like Eastern Europe from the depths of despair into the civilized world of economic vitality? Simply stated, they are convinced that capitalism is hostile to the common good, because, among other sins, it's not perfect. They are also in league with the European vision of a robust Statist influence in our lives, which is curious because their infatuation is out of sync with France and Germany, who are moving aggressively to inhibit public sector influence, embracing everything from pension reform to changing the culture that gave birth to the strangling 35-hour work week.
Coupled with their anachronistic polity that denies the existence of evil and insists that despots are on a par with leaders of free nations--because, as you know, the former are merely the by-products of America's imperialist, hegemonic depredations--the unavoidable result is that everything that was historically lionized about America is now fundamentally flawed. Indeed, in the post-modern universe Lovato inhabits there are no absolutes, moral or civic, which places democracy in supreme jeopardy.
But, as the election moves into full swing, it's encouraging to know that the neolithic left will be nipping at Obama's heels, sleepless in its pursuit of a socialist America, which can only leverage moderate Democrats and Independents into McCain's camp, which, of course, we welcome.