Christopher Hitchens' final article in The Nation: "Why I'm (Slightly) for Bush." Key passage:
In Kabul recently, I interviewed Dr. Masuda Jalal, a brave Afghan physician who was now able to run for the presidency. I asked her about her support for the intervention in Iraq. "For us," she said, "the battle against terrorism and against dictatorship are the same thing." I dare you to snicker at simple-mindedness like that.
Back in the Age of Reagan I was a "progressive activist" whose roommate had once been a chief organizer for ACORN. I've raised tens of thousands of dollars in small increments of $10 to $50 donations going door to door for these "progressive" causes. During that time it never even occurred to me that these people would adopt a position that betrayed their anti-authoritarian ideals as thoroughly as they have done since Noam Chomsky wrote his infamous indictment of America as the "real" cause of the 9-11 attack, becoming a traitor not only to the nation that give him the latitude to secure his illustrious career, but to the very ideals that he and others claim define their virtuous identities.
And I remained a Democrat, even while disagreeing with my former "progressive" friends about Afghanistan and later Iraq, until the Left universally excused Dan Rather's perfidy on Sixty Minutes on the grounds that "there was a deeper truth beneath the forgeries." Like hell there was. That "truth" was as naked as God's children in the Garden.
(Simultaneously cross-posted by Demosophist to Demosophia, Anticipatory Retaliation and The Jawa Report)
Posted by Demosophist at October 25, 2004 05:14 PM | TrackBack