Peter Beinart: A Pathetic Narrative Of Epic Proportions
Chickenhawk bitch
Peter Beinart
‘NY Times’ Sunday Preview:
Democrats Need a Shot of ‘Cold War Liberalism’
NEW YORK Democrats may feel they are riding high, heading into the midterm elections with President Bush’s approval rating at an all-time low, but Peter Beinart offers a warning, and a new direction, for the party in a feature piece upcoming this Sunday in The New York Times Magazine. It’s titled provocatively, “The Rehabilitation of the Cold-War Liberal.�
The article is adapted from his forthcoming book, “The Good Fight.� Beinart is currently editor-at-large for The New Republic.
Beinart warns that it is not enough for the Democrats to simply run on “competence� this year, rather than telling Americans “what their vision is.� For better or worse, the Republicans have such a vision, which voters understand: “America represents good in an epic struggle against evil.�
Democrats have some good foreign-policy minds and even some worthy foreign-policy proposals but no “coherent story about the post-9/11 world….Before Democrats can conquer their ideological weakness, they must first conquer their ideological amnesia,â€? he declares.
The problem is, “Liberals don’t have a script because they don’t have a Reagan.� Their most recent presidents: Jimmy Çarter, considered a “failure� in the international field, and Bill Clinton, who allegedly didn’t have to do much because foreign policy was “peripheral� when he was in charge. (Beinart does not mention that Clinton at least ignored pleas to invade and occupy Iraq.)
While conservatives have “at least told a coherent political story, with deep historical roots, about what keeps America safe and what makes it great,” liberals “have offered adjectives drawn from focus groups and policy proposals linked by no larger theme.”
So what are the Dems to do? According to Beinart, they should look back to the late 1940s and 1950s and embrace the cold war liberalism of the time, best represented by Reinhold Niebuhr and George F. Kennan.
Besides being tough and anti-isolationist, this is defined by “a struggle not merely for democracy but for economic opportunity as well, in the belief that the former required the latter to survived.â€? It also requires admitting that even in fighting evil America must admit that we are not “inherently good.” He also calls for “generosity at homeâ€? as well as “generosity abroad.â€?
But how all this differs from current Democratic philosophy is hard to discern.
Themes? Stories? Vision?
I’m sorry, but I don’t want any of that politics-as-usual crap from the Democratic Party. I want agile leadership, stocked with backbone and the ability to shift on the fly.
And for this guy to wax poetic about the Republicans owning the concept, “America represents good in an epic struggle against evilâ€? shows how out of touch he is with the American voters, because ever since the Bush administration took office, even Republicans have been questioning this… narrative.
Keep on telling stories, bitches.
In the meantime, I’ll take a leader who listens to his/her constituency, will pull out a mirror and ask the tough questions of us as a republic and is willing to make sacrifices for the benefit of our already impoverished unborn grandchildren any day of the week.
Tags: 9 11, Democratic Party, George Bush, New World Order, Peter Beinart, philosophy, politics, Republican Party, sacrifice.
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What’s amusing is.. Iraq is “BOTH” parties faults. Why do I say this? In all technicality, the first Gulf War never ended. Being that you need a President to declare the end of the war, and the first Bush didn’t, neither did Clinton, and of course not the second Bush.
So every single person that joined the armed forces since the first Gulf War, is technically a veteran and receives money from the VA.
If Clinton really didn’t want us in there, he would have declared the end of the war.
Now ain’t that crazy.
I hate sales pitches, from both sides. “We’re going to do something about poverty! We’re going to be everyone’s in the world’s friend! We’re going to provide everyone health care!”
Reality: “We write off programs that help poverty that don’t exist! We invade other countries in the name of democracy! We provide jack diddly on health care!”
The day this changes, is the day an honest person somehow been forced ta gunpoint into politics.
well, clinton oversaw the official policy change from containing sadaam to removing sadaam, so yeah, you’re spot on. hell, every administration going back to reagan is complicit in the sadaam mess as far as i’m concerned. and iran? well, who was president in ‘53?
yeah, we’re the “talking loud, but ain’t saying nothing” bastion of politics… for sure.
Oh… and that “chickenhawk bitch” guy. Scary looking. For some reason, he reminds me of this movie/documentary of that psychotic guy that locks himself in a clocktower with a rifle and starts picking off people… I forget the incident’s name itself…
you mean “higher learning?” ice cube’s second best movie…
Was that based off a true story? I thought it was like Discovery or History channel. lol.
are you talking about the Kent State shootings?…
That’s closer, but no. This was some guy that shot like 10-12 people in a clocktower with a rifle. He basically sat up there all day and picked off people. It was a long time ago when I saw it.. Might have been a college campus though.
University of Texas - Austin. Perp: Charles Whitman. Year of crim: 1966.
Link
Ice Cube’s best movie…? Anaconda.
http://www.christiananswers.net/kids/rainforest/anaconda.jpg
That’s it! Thanks Sue. Yeah, that chickenshit guy reminds me of “that guy”.
i was thinking, boyz in the hood, but different strokes…
let theme eat narritives.