The Day After the Day After

Are liberals barking mad? They recoiled at an Inaugural Address that re-affirmed John Kennedy's support for global freedom and democracy. Though President Clinton proposed to "Save Social Security First," the Senate's top Democrat says Dems will oppose Bush's plan--even though the President hasn't yet finalized a Social Security reform proposal. Such intense Bush hatred makes Democrats less opposition party, more Monty Python argument clinic. Liberals see the world as a never-ending disaster movie ("Tsunami!") of America's doing. With Howard Dean the front-runner to head the DNC, this nation's oldest political organization appears bent on painting itself into the corner of ceaseless irrelevance.

This lunacy is especially apparent in most Dems' opposition to President Bush's war on terror. The "Querulous Party," in Rich Lowry's phrase, is too busy bleating "No WMDs," insisting on announced exit strategies and double-counting un-intentional collateral damage to smell the coffee. So, the Iraqi elections were pronounced a failure before, during and after the balloting. This pre-judgment prompted specious hand-wringing premised on an allegedly un-informed electorate, says Front Page Magazine's Ben Johnson:

[The] objection that political parties had to withhold their candidates’ names (for their own safety) overlooks the fact that Iraqis, like most democracies other than America, voted on a parliamentary system. That is, they did not vote for individuals but for political parties and coalitions, based on the views embodied in their respective platforms – which, as [blogger Ari] Berman pointed out, were widely circulated. Iraqi TV even broadcast a televised debate. So much for ignorance.

Mickey Kaus explains why reporters' rudders are stuck. Using the example of the LA Times' Alissa Rubin, Kaus says the press projects its views onto ordinary Iraqis and thus,

side with the "skeptics" who think the insurgency's strength will prompt Iraqis to readily trade the rule of law and human rights--"the language of democracy"--for security. She's not alone in this (she has Fareed Zakaria, Lawrence Kaplan and, on alternate Thursdays, Andrew Sullivan on her side). But the deeper problem for the Times may not be unleashing such reporters to say what they think; it's the possibility that what Times reporters think may be wrong.

Can Democrats "pull up" before the crash? Columnist Dennis Prager thinks the Dems' decline is irreversible:

There were intellectually and morally honest arguments against going to war in Iraq. But once the war began, a moral person could not oppose it. No moral person could hope for, let alone act on behalf of, a victory for the Arab/Islamic fascists. Just ask yourself but two questions: If America wins, will there be an increase or decrease in goodness in Iraq and in the world? And then ask what would happen if the Al Qaeda/Zarqawi/ Baathists win.

It brings me no pleasure to describe opponents of the Iraqi war as "worth nothing." I know otherwise fine, decent people who oppose the war. So I sincerely apologize for the insult.

But to the Left in general, as opposed to individually good people who side with the Left, I have no apologies. It is the Left -- in America, in Europe and around the world -- that should do all the apologizing: to the men, women and children of Iraq and elsewhere for not coming to their support against those who would crush them.

Still, a few liberal journalists have seen the light. One is Mark Brown in the Chicago Sun-Times:

[A]fter watching Sunday's election in Iraq and seeing the first clear sign that freedom really may mean something to the Iraqi people, you have to be asking yourself: What if it turns out Bush was right, and we were wrong?

It's hard to swallow, isn't it? . . .

I won't say that it had never occurred to me previously, but it's never gone through my mind as strongly as when I watched the television coverage from Iraq that showed long lines of people risking their lives by turning out to vote, honest looks of joy on so many of their faces.

Some CNN guest expert was opining Monday that the Iraqi people crossed a psychological barrier by voting and getting a taste of free choice (setting aside the argument that they only did so under orders from their religious leaders).

I think it's possible that some of the American people will have crossed a psychological barrier as well.

On the other side of that barrier is a concept some of us have had a hard time swallowing:

Maybe the United States really can establish a peaceable democratic government in Iraq, and if so, that would be worth something.

Would it be worth all the money we've spent? Certainly.

Would it be worth all the lives that have been lost? That's the more difficult question, and while I reserve judgment on that score until such a day arrives, it seems probable that history would answer yes to that as well.

Another is David Aaronovitch in the left-wing Guardian (UK):

[A]fter Sunday, we have no more excuses. The elections, so vilified in some quarters, were a revelation. Those anti-war people who could escape their hooks saw millions of ordinary people delighting in the process of voting, and many thousands risking everything (where we would risk nothing) to cast their ballot.

That, now, is all that matters. Not whether you were for or against the war, for or against Blair, for or against Bush. Are you for or against democracy in Iraq? The rest is air.

The late Michael Kelly challenged aging socialists to recognize their mistakes:

At some point it becomes a seriously immoral act to refuse to acknowledge the truth. At some point, you have to ask whether it is morally acceptable to regard those who yet refuse to come to terms with communism other than as people who have chosen to adhere to known evil. And that point has been long passed.

I've no hope for Senator Rum-Blossom of Massachusetts. But surely some Democrats were moved by John Burns' NY Times quote from Falida Saleh, a 37-year old engineer hidden behind a head to toe cloak, "A hundred names on the ballot are better than one, because it means that we are free." For America's sake, I pray the Party nominates one of the later sort in 2008, one whose familarity with freedom is no less sophicated than Ms. Saleh's.

(via Instapundit, Belgravia Dispatch and LGF)

More:

Jonah Goldberg on the the naysayers:

Every setback has been a disaster, proof of a "quagmire" or "imperial hubris." And every success has been greeted by a smug declaration that "this was the easy part" and the "hard part is next." Well, here's some news: It's all been hard. Toppling Hussein was hard. Creating the interim government was hard. Building hospitals, schools, and soccer fields: all hard.

All of the sophisticates and cynics insisted that having elections would be a bloody fool's errand. Bush was being too rigid by holding firm on the January elections. Surely a more reasonable man would postpone them since everyone knows they'll be a bloodbath. And then, once they took place, the goalposts were moved again.