Is Being Too Left Possible Anymore?
October 24th, 2008 by
Editor: Scott
George Neumayr has an excellent piece at the The American Spectator. I interject here and there for added clarity.
Debates in D.C. seem to shift ever leftward, with last year’s liberal positions becoming this year’s unacceptably reactionary ones — a trend that is bound to accelerate under a Democratic monopoly of all three branches of government.
The extent to which the 1960s counter-culture has become the culture and 1960s anti-Americanism become the new patriotism is amazing. That’s why Obama could launch his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist and pay almost no price for it. As Chris Matthews lectured Pat Buchanan on Hardball last Friday night, Ayers was a terrorist with a worthy motivation: he bombed the Pentagon because he wanted America out of Vietnam, a blameless goal indeed. Under the Left’s tortured understanding of the new patriotism, even Jeremiah Wright is pro-American: his fulminations had the purpose of drawing America into the light.
Patriotism is now measured not by respect for the conservatism contained in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution but by the level of one’s enthusiasm for the America to come.
To be a good American now means you nod vigorously as an Obama supporter at a cocktail party bashes the Boy Scouts as bigots while explaining to you why Obama’s association with the “distinguished” education professor (as Congressman Rahm Emanuel put it) Bill Ayers is no big deal.
Ayers is the a fore mentioned domestic terrorist that co-founded a radical group that bombed several public buildings in the 60s & 70s. He now promotes his socialist ideals via education reform, and is believed to have ghost written both of Obama’s books. Obama initially denied the association with Ayers but through a series of restatements admitted more and more of an association to him.
It means you chuckle along with Joe Biden as he tells Ellen DeGeneres that conservative Californians are deluded to oppose gay marriage.
Or it means listening in hushed awe as unimpeachable American hero Colin Powell calls the most liberal Republican presidential nominee ever “narrow” and insufficiently “inclusive,” and scolds unnamed Americans for objecting to the notion of a Muslim president. (I was half-expecting him to join Barney Frank in calling for the elimination of the Constitution’s prohibition on foreign-born presidents. Surely that’s not “inclusive” either.)
This is the McCain that constantly harassed the Bush administration and earned the nickname “maverick” by repeatedly joining with Democrats and “moderates” in the face of his own party.
What was once considered the anti-American Left now has the power to define who is and who is not a good American. Seeing victory in sight, they grow more bold and unapologetic. Over the last few days, instead of denying charges thrown at Obama, they have readily conceded them and basically said: So what?
I mentioned this disturbing trend in the “joe the plumber” aftermath a few days ago. Obama and friends seem less and less concerned with defending their radical views and what “change” will really mean for America. Are his followers really that blind or do they actually hate America (as it was created and has been at least) that much?
