That's why I've been pondering for the last several days a comment left here by a real-life friend of mine, a lawyer with whom I used to practice and with whom I still correspond and play poker regularly. As part of an essay comparing Barack Obama to John F. Kennedy and Jimmy Carter, I'd included the following sentence: "Kennedy, at least, was a war veteran, and he came from a Democratic Party that hadn't yet started reflexively doubting, then hating and apologizing for, all things American." To that characterization, my friend left the following pithy question in the comments (emphasis mine): "Do you really believe that the Democrats hate all things American?"
The Democratic Party leadership's actions and inactions here are both excellent examples of what I originally characterized as "reflexively doubting, then hating and apologizing for, all things American." Their starting and nearly irrefutable presumption is that the governmental agencies, military and non-, that we have entrusted with our national security are corrupt, incompetent, and abusive — indeed, that they, and not the terrorists, are America's real enemy. The dangers those American professionals have been charged to protect us from, Congress systematically downplays or ignores. Not only the president from an opposing party, but nonpolitical career professionals and even dissenters from within the Democratic Party (e.g., Joe Lieberman), must be demonized by the Democratic Party leadership and its sycophants in the mainstream media as "abusers of civil rights." And one need not wander far downstream from that leadership to find allied minions and advocates who are eager to apply the word "fascist" with absolutely straight (albeit hate-filled) faces.
My original formulation was indeed overbroad. Pelosi, Reid, Clinton, and Obama et al. don't doubt, hate, and apologize for all things American. Notwithstanding Sen. Obama's resistance to lapel pins, they aren't out burning American flags, for instance. But neither are they condemning those who do so at their anti-BusHitler rallies. All too often, and indeed with increasing frequency as they approach the 2008 election, the Democratic Party leaders are acting reflexively, and irrationally, and indefensibly. Some small fringe of the American public at the very extreme edge of the Angry Left would agree with them that it's better for Congress to prevent terrorist heat rashes and bunions than exploded American bodies. But do not tell me that that's representative of America — not even of most of those who would happily and proudly self-identify as "Democrats."
And on Obama:
The Obama campaign in particular demonstrates, and even exceeds, these same tendencies and attitudes. It's not just in Sen. Obama's votes, which have earned him recognition as the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate. It's very explicit in his and his wife's campaign rhetoric too: America as it actually is and has been during their own remarkably privileged lifetimes, they find unworthy of pride. Only America as it can become — one Nation, under Obama — can be worth being proud of.
The Democratic Party is on the brink of nominating him as their presidential candidate. Is it unfair for me, then, to impute his and his wife's beliefs to the members of their party generally?
Good, solid, and intelligent members of the Democratic Party — like my commenting friend — have a reasonably clear choice, I think. Each must ask himself or herself: Do I continue to support my party leaders with my votes and my membership in their party? Or do I abandon them and instead speak out, and vote, in ways that would actually advance American interests instead of undercutting them? I won't doubt my Democratic friends' patriotism if they continue to stand by their party's leaders. But I will continue to doubt the wisdom and even the rationality of those party leaders, and to use this blog to express those doubts as best as I can manage.
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