By Owen Paine on Monday May 1, 2006 10:41 AM
Junior Peretznik Peter Beinart, writing in the perfect venue, thinks too many donks are sunk under
shame and fear about the American empire.
His goal:
to cure this road-to-Munich disease
by a cold-war liberal memory implant.
Alienated by the war in Iraq, many [Democrats] have grown suspicious of intervening in other countries' affairs. A recent Gallup survey shows Democrats twice as likely as Republicans to say that America should mind its own business internationally.... And a 2005 poll by the Century Foundation and the Center for American Progress found self-described liberals far less interested than conservatives in promoting democracy. Indeed, in their recent manifesto, Congressional Democrats barely mentioned it as a foreign-policy goal.Hence this article about our legendary Cold War liberal heroes -- including, rather bizarrely, musty names like Reinhold Niebuhr. Been a while since that mighty thinker has been rolled out, in my hearing, anyway.
Beinart's large-souled goal appears to be rescuing the Democratic Party from its members, and liberalism from liberals. He sternly tells us we need to intervene globally -- but with the proper posse: an official one full of what Mike Savage would call "guys with sombreros, turbans, feathered headdresses and berets." In other words, to personify St. Woodrow's way vs. Teddy R's lone ranger. -- an invisible empire of human righteousness where democracy can take its baby steps, and the little guy experience a gathering prosperity through progressive transnational investments.
