Friday, January 11, 2008

Washington Post: anti-war is anti-American

In today's paper, The Washington Post's editorial board takes a few brief and well-deserved shots at some of Ron Paul's populist weak spots: his views on the Civil War, the NAFTA superhighway, the Federal Reserve Board and, of course, the racist newsletters.

But all of this is a lead-up to slamming Paul -- and presumably all non-interventionists -- because of his support of fair dealing with other countries and his opposition to the war in Iraq. It seems that opposing a bullying foreign policy and an imperial presence in a host of nations is strange, suspect and ... well ... damned un-American.

Mr. Paul goes so far as to express understanding of Osama bin Laden's antipathy toward U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia, which, Mr. Paul says, created the "incentive" for the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. "It's sort of like if you step in a snake pit and you get bit," he told Mr. Russert. "Who caused the trouble?" During the Cold War, the late Jeane Kirkpatrick chided Democrats for "blaming America first" in foreign policy. That may or may not have been apt. But in 2008, there is one candidate to whom her words definitely apply: Republican Ron Paul.

So now the Post is echoing Jeane Kirkpatrick's smear of anybody who doesn't support aggressive use of military force to impose American will overseas? Wow. I guess that's because it's just too late in the game to sling "commie sympathizer" as an insult, and "islamo-fascist-symp" just doesn't trip off the tongue as easily as "blaming America first."

Why debate your opponents over the risks and benefits of military intervention when you can just accuse them of being anti-American?

Labels:

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Links to this post:

Create a Link

<< Home