Um, Could Liberals Have Been Wrong?
By Isaiah Z. Sterrett (03/17/05)
I SPENT last week attacking Republicans for being Congressional ninnies too afraid of big, bad Democrats to speak up, and liberals spent the same period of time beating themselves up over Iraq.
I was mad at the GOP for losing sight of our goals, while Democrats quietly, reluctantly congratulated us for actually accomplishing our goals.
They said democracy couldn’t exist in the Mid-East, and now they admit they were wrong. I said W. could change Washington for good, and for awhile he had me wondering if I was wrong.
Now we’re where we’ve been heading since 9/11, all under the direction of President George Bush: liberals have agreed to refrain from (publicly) dissing the troops, and Republicans have agreed to remember that, contrary to what Democrats keep insisting, we won in November.
The most recent sign that the White House has completely rehabilitated itself from the last few weeks is that Bush nominated the incomparable John Bolton to be our U.N. Ambassador. At first the merit of this particular decision was not clear to me, but then I read Molly Ivins’ very memorable rant in which she called Bolton “arrogant, humorless, self-righteous and confrontational,” adding, “and he hates the United Nations.” Once I laid my eyes on those priceless syllables, I could rest assured that Bush had made a terrific—no, a beautiful—selection.
To begin with, Bolton is a Goldwater fan. That alone should qualify him for a good job. He was also close to Sen. Jesse Helms. Further, as Bob Novak reported, he’s the only diplomat to ever be greeted with cheer by members of the American Conservative Union. Doesn’t that just scream “U.N.”?
Liberals were hoping we’d choose someone only slightly to the right of Dennis Kucinich to replace John Negroponte—and just the opposite occurred. Now we’ve got to put up with their kvetching about John Bolton, a genuinely respected Washington insider. Bolton’s replacing Negroponte at the House of Kofi, and replacing Bush-Cheney-Rice-Rumsfeld in the hearty imaginations of paranoid liberals.
For a few days after the stunning elections in Iraq, most liberals didn’t know what to say. The left’s fringe spoke up—that is, John Kerry. Other than that, most of them kept quiet. Now, acting eerily patriotic, they’ve started to wonder if Bush—hard swallow—could have been right.
Even Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show” has started munching crow. Apparently “Mess O’ Potamia” could be helped. If we can convince Stewart, we can convince anybody. And with Hillary Clinton running to the right like Tom Friedman toward an outdoor daiquiri stand, things can only improve for Bush.
At the same time, caution is advised; in the absence of Iraq to scream about, Social Security has dropped into place. Instead of Robert Scheer seething hysterically over quagmire in the desert, he’s making reasoned, careful statements like this: “The country is being led by a group of ideologues who fanatically reject the notion that government has a role to play in ameliorating the harshest aspects of capitalism.”
Yes, Bush loves capitalism and hates governmental intervention into the economy. When was the last time he illustrated this truth, exactly? Was it the tariffs on steel? I don’t think so.
Paul Krugman—who was last seen on Comedy Central trying, embarrassingly, to be funny—made a similarly taut argument: Bush, he said, “has been using taxpayers' money to sell its privatization plans in ways that would have been considered out of bounds for any previous administration.”
This is great, especially for Republicans. Finally, at long last—something that would have been “out of bounds” for Clinton! “Go ahead and molest interns, sir, but please, whatever you do, don’t touch Social Security!”
In the spirit of liberals’ current stature, I’ll conclude with a shout out to one of the more preposterous liberals I’ve met recently, Tarmo Hannula, a photographer for the tiny Register-Pajaronian newspaper. (Both of the people who read the Pajaronian are fuming with rage at that last sentence.) At a career-day event this week at Aptos High School, Hannula made the astounding point that the New York Times—the paper that employs people like Krugman—“endorsed” the Iraq war for the White House. The Newspaper of Record, he said, was shilling for Bush.
Then he got on his spaceship and went back to Mars.
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