Good Question
An editorial in today's
Wall Street Journal poses this question: "Why are Democrats who voted for war now siding with France?"
An excerpt:
Mr. Daschle is in particular beating the antiwar drums, declaring last week that the Bush Administration is "rushing to war without adequate concern for the ramifications of doing so unilaterally or with a very small coalition of nations."
Asked by reporter Major Garrett if anything had changed since last fall, Mr. Daschle replied this way: "Oh, absolutely. I think what's changed mostly, Major, is the extraordinary disintegration of support in the international community. I assumed last fall that we would be able to build the same coalition that we had in '91. That has not happened. In fact, if anything, our situation has put us into a more isolated position than I ever anticipated."
This is rewriting history. We don't recall hearing last fall that Democratic support was contingent on the right of French first refusal. We've re-read the Joint Resolution on Iraq and nowhere can we find the words "France" or "Germany." Nowhere does it say that the President has to clear his decisions with Gerhard Schröder or Vladimir Putin.
In answering the original question as to why these Democratic leaders are now siding against their own country, the Journal says "It's hard to find any answer beyond naked partisanship and opportunism."
That's only a partial answer. Since 1972 the Democratic Party has been dominated by what Jeane Kirkpatrick called "the blame America first" crowd. These are people driven by a fundamental opposition to America's founding principles and free market traditions. (See Marcy Kaptur and Patty Murray.) They believe that the profit incentive at the heart of American capitalism and freedom is the source of world suffering. But while they promote policies to curtail the profit incentive for everyone else, they personally pursue profit and shamelessly bask in its luxurious benefits. (See Tom Daschle,
Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Jay Rockefeller and Pat Leahy.) And since, in their view, America is the source of international suffering and angst, it has no right to preempt attacks of which it's richly deserving. (See Jimmy Carter, Marcy Kaptur and Carl Levin.)
This is the mindset which has given us American political leaders opposed to America.
The Journal's concluding paragraph opens with this disclaimer: "We are not, let us stress, questioning the patriotism of any of these Democrats." Then how about this question: would a patriot put "naked partisanship and opportunism" ahead of national security?
I
am, let me stress, questioning the patriotism of these Democrats.
