January 15, 2004

You Can't Handle the Truth

Conservatives have had a field day with Ted Kennedy's speech of yesterday, calling him a "gassbag" who cannot handle the truth. "The truth is," according to Angela Phelps of Human Events, that "if any American lived a single day under the former dictator of Iraq, they too would have been screaming for regime change in Iraq."

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Duh! No one disagrees with that. But this country has long ago -- read nearly 100 years -- given up on the Wilsonian notion that America can or should remake the world politically in her own image. When the Right argues such blatantly liberal notions as human rights as the basis for new war policies, something really weird is going on. And almost no one seems to notice or care how backwards this all is.

[A] unilateral US war with Iraq would actually be a travesty of Wilsonian principles. While Wilson was certainly prepared to use US armed force in pursuit of his aims, the core of his philosophy was a commitment to the development of international institutions and international law. This is something for which the US nationalists who now misuse his name have open contempt.

Some have called the Bush Administration's philosophy "democratic imperialism," with a small "d" and an emphasis on the second word. That's the truth. But neo-conservatives can't handle the fact that they have been spouting flamingly liberal doctrine in support of their imperialistic aims, so they just made up the imminent threat of WMDs. That's the truth.

 Posted by glenn

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