The Hunt for Heretics Will Continue Until Morale ImprovesJoe Klein
finds himself in
the crosshairs. Now Klein is a liberal Democrat, but he recognizes the idiocy of the American Left. Here's what
he says he said:
What I actually said was "the hate America tendency of the [Democratic Party's] left wing" had made it harder for Democrats to challenge Republicans on foreign policy.
Alterman had me castigating the "liberal wing" of the party, which I was careful not to do. There is a crucial difference between liberals and leftists, especially on foreign policy--even though Republicans (and leftist-wingers) have successfully conflated the two over the past few decades. The default position of leftists like, say, Michael Moore and many writers at The Nation, is that America is essentially a malignant, imperialistic force in the world and the use of American military power is almost always wrong. Liberals have a more benign, and correct, view of America's role in the world and tend to favor the use of military force if it is exercised judiciously, as a last resort, and in a multilateral contect--with U.N. approval or through NATO.The Left is making a quite serious attempt to stifle all the voices of moderate liberalism, from Chris Matthews to Joe Klein to the New Republic. And while it's tempting to stand back like Flounder and say "Oh, boy, is this great?", the fact is that at some point the Republicans are going to lose--the economy will hit a bad patch at the wrong time as happened with Bush I--and these idiots on the loony left are liable to be in charge.
