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February 9, 2004
Hitchens on the candidates
Christopher Hitchens, who is increasingly one from the left whom I admire--especially for his intelectual honesty, makes his recommendation on who the Democrats should nominate and in the process, IMO, makes very articulate cases for why one should NOT support Kerry and why one SHOULD support Bush.
First on Kerry:
As with most senior Democrats, Kerry's revolving-door record with lobbyists and donors is one to make Cheney and Bush look like amateurs: As with all Democratic primary seasons there is an agreement to forget this collectively in the interests of "change." That's why Lucy in "Peanuts" has become a great national character.
Then on Bush:
I'm a single-issue person at present, and the single issue in case you are wondering is the tenacious and unapologetic defense of civilized societies against the intensifying menace of clerical barbarism. If in the smallest doubt about this, I would suggest a vote for the re-election of George Bush, precisely because he himself isn't prey to any doubt on the point.
The Right always salutes leftists as "intellectually honest" when they desert their fellow travellers. Remember Whitaker Chambers!
There are three potent objections to Hitchens's position on Bush. 1). No election, even in time of war, should be decided on "one" issue. 2). Even if we accept that Bush is focussed to the exclusion of all else on "The War on Terror" (something by no means certain), many people would argue that he has not prosecuted that War very well: the invasion of Iraq did little to pacify International Islamism. 3). The Hitch is, and always has been, quite nuts. First, he was an unreconstructed Trotskyite, and now he is... what, exactly? At any rate, what he always is: an entertaining gadfly.
I have to admit to a fair level of disappointment of the left when it comes to Iraq. You hear howls of protest when a suspected terrorist isn't allowed to meet with a lawyer in this country but very little sympathy for an entire nation--in fact an entire region--is living under tyranny. Why doesn't NOW, for example, praise the fact that 12 million women have now been freed in Iraq? Do leftists only care about the rights, humanity, and quality of life of Americans? I didn't think so.
Does anyone doubt that is Clinton had persecuted this war that he would have been heralded as the next Wilson from the left? (And by the way, does anyone doubt that Democrats would be glowing about the economy if there were a Democrat in office?)
Clinton persecuted a war in the Balkans without UN sanction and I can't remember ANYONE form the left worrying about "unilateralism."
I appreciate that many on the left are cynical about Bush's motives, but out of cowardice and Bush hatred many ignore their core principles--isn't the left supposed to be interested in saving the world? Truth is, I don't think Bush wants to save the world--I think he wants to save America. I believe that he believes very strongly that the best way to save us from terrorism is to solve the worlds tyranny problem, for it is tyranny tat spawns terrorism.
Where is the support for ridding the world of tyrants? All we hear from the left, with the Hitch's of the world being the notable exceptions, is that we shouldn't free one country unless we can free them all, or some such silliness.
So it comes to this--I believe many, especially Kerry, Clark, and followers--are opposed to this policy fudementally for political expediancy. And that if Clinton has done this, they would have been on board. Let's remember that official Clinton policy, approved by Congress, was regime change in Iraq. Don't you think that after 9/11 even Clinton may have decided to take the battle to our enemy?
I remember vividly the left scoffing loudly when Reagan called the Soviet Union an "evil empire." Even many on the right felt that his dismissal of realpolitik and detente lacked prudence. But it took a president with a clear vision to win the cold war. WINNING the war, rather than just trudging along, was Reagan's big idea. Ridding the world of tyranny is Bush's big idea. It's a big idea. It needs to be done, and as hundreds of millions have been freed from the tyranny of communism and are living better lives (in Eastern Europe, Asia, Latin America), we can do the same in the middle east--and eventually Africa. If not the US, who?