Thursday, June 23, 2005

The Liberal Briar Patch

Expanding on the Law Jedi's observation about Karl Rove's latest statement, HughHewitt.com has the goods from Ken Mehlman: A long, damning list of statements from MoveOn.org, Michael Moore, and George Soros underscoring exactly Rove's point.

As a factual matter, this is an open-and-shut case.

Here's where the Rove trap is sprung: Democrats as a whole, did not behave like the far-left establishment in the aftermath of September 11. Democrats acted like pretty much everyone else in America.

It was the far left--the group which has hijacked American liberalism--that reacted with such sourness. But in the intervening years, the far left has somehow convinced us that they and the Democratic party are one in the same--all numerical and electoral evidence to the contrary.

To be sure, Republicans have tried to help sell this notion, but now it seems that the Democratic party itself confused as to who it really is. Rove has just goaded them into self-identifying with a bunch of nuts who really don't represent the party's mainstream.

I mean, do Democrats want to keep losing elections?

P.S. Thanks to Al for catching my Freudian slip.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

"undermining exactly Rove's point"

I think you mean underscoring, not undermining.

Ralphie said...

The New Republic long ago pointed out that the extremes on the far left and far right and bending back over to meet each other (sorry, can't find the article online). But that is irrelevant in this case. The point is that the loudest voices right now on the left side of the aisle are the furthest left, and that many of their ideas are indeed finding their way into the public decalrations of the leadership of the Democratic party.

Anonymous said...

arrscott:
This is revisionist history. There is no question that many on the left opposed the war in Iraq because it would divert resources from Afghanistan, but they are the same people who believed we should never invade Afghanistan in the first place. Michael Moore was vehemently opposed to attacking Afghanistan, called it another Vietnam, then feined support as an excuse for why we shouldn't invade Iraq. Don't forget R.W. Apple's Afghanistan "quagmire" article going to print the exact day the Taliban fell. Please don't mistake opportunism for geniune support. Whatever support the left has for our invasion of Afghanistan is ex post facto. Similarly, many on the left cited the cold war as the model of how to deal with Saddam. They invoked the names of Reagan and Thatcher, yet the same lefties were on the front lines protesting Reagan's tactics during the actual cold war. How many countless movies were made about the imminent nuclear holocaust that Reagan was going to provoke? It's really quite funny, actually. I seem to remember millions of people protesting the invasion of Iraq in NYC, DC, SanFran, etc, and I don't remember seeing any "invading Iraq diverts resources from the war on terror" signs. I do remember seeing plenty of "America: The real terrorists" or "Bush=Hitler" or "America should be invaded to get rid of their WMDs". Now tell me, how many of those protestors do you think are registered republicans? None. However, I'd say every one of them eligible to vote either voted for Kerry or Nader. The left speaks out of both sides of their mouth and hopes nobody will notice. Kerry tried to give the impression he would get us out of Iraq at the same time he was calling for increasing the number of troops. The public noticed this logical inconsistency, hence no "President Kerry"
You're full of shit about Kaine too. He's a real class act, mocking Jerry Kilgore's southern accent. One of the reasons Virginians don't buy into Kaine's supposed moderate positions is because Warner campaigned on the same platform, won, and proceeded to raise taxes.