http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/52062.html The hypocrisy of the American left By JOE SCARBOROUGH | 3/29/11 4:44 AM EDT Self-righteousness is a dangerous vice. It breeds arrogance and moral blind spots for those who come to believe they are superior to those who share different worldviews. Televangelists have fallen prey to this feeling of superiority, until the time they are caught crawling on the ground outside a hookerâs hotel room. Politicians have also wallowed in the grandiosity of their moralistic worldview, until they too fall prey to the hypocrisy that eventually snags all self-righteous moralizers. For a decade now, we have been told of George W. Bushâs and Dick Cheneyâs moral failings. They have been regularly compared to Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini and every other tyrant of the past century. Bush has been damned by the ministers of the far left as a war criminal, a fascist and a Nazi when labeling his policies as overly ideological and deeply flawed would have sufficed. But that was never enough for the carnival barkers on cable news or the blogosphere. For the American left, Bush had to be condemned as an immoral beast who killed women and children to get his bloody hands on Iraqi oil. That extremism required that the Bush years be filled with images of CODEPINK protesting on Capitol Hill, anti-war activists clogging the streets of New York City and left-wing commentators beating their chests with the self-righteous indignation of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. But in the morally murky afterglow of the Obama years, the certainty of these secular saints has melted away. President Barack Obama bowed to his generalsâ demands by tripling troops in an unending war. CODEPINK did nothing. Obama backed down on Guantanamo Bay. Anti-war protesters stayed at home. America invaded its third Muslim country in a decade. The American left meekly went along. Without the slightest hint of irony, liberals defended the presidentâs indefensible position by returning again to a pose of moral certainty. Democrats streamed to the floors of the House and Senate to praise the president for invading Libya. It was, after all, a moral mission that would stop the slaughter of innocent civilians. Whether protesting for peace or calling for war, these liberals once again convinced themselves of the moral superiority of their positions. While one can make the moral argument that countries can be attacked strictly on humanitarian grounds, that argument is laughable when it comes to Libya. How can the left call for the ouster of Muammar Qadhafi for the sin of killing hundreds of Libyans when it opposed the war waged against Saddam Hussein? During Saddamâs two decades in Iraq, he killed more Muslims than anyone in history and used chemical weapons against his own people and neighboring states. With the help of his equally despicable sons, Uday and Qusay, Saddam devastated Iraq, terrorized his people and destroyed that countryâs environment. By the time American troops deposed him in 2003, Saddam had killed at least 300,000 of his own people â and human rights groups say that tally does not even include the million-plus casualties his invasion of Iran caused. If Obama and his liberal supporters believed Qadhafiâs actions morally justified the Libyan invasion, why did they sit silently by for 20 years while Saddam killed hundreds of thousands? And how do they claim the moral high ground in Libya while not calling for the immediate invasion of Syria? The monstrous Bashar al-Assad regime is slaughtering his own people by the hundreds. More killings are sure to happen as that corrupt regime teeters on the brink of collapse. In Yemen, the situation is no better. Government snipers shoot unarmed women and children from the rooftops of Sanaa. Should we follow Obamaâs example in Libya and invade that country in the name of humanitarian relief? Or should we step into the breach in the Ivory Coast, where a terrifying civil war has led to a million refugees fleeing that country. And why do we not enter Sudan, where hundreds of thousands of innocents have been slaughtered over the past decade in a civil war of horrifying proportions? Katrina vanden Heuvel, one of the few liberals to take a principled stand against what America is doing in Libya, has written in The Nation that the anti-war left has been silent since Obama took office because they donât want to hurt the presidentâs reelection chances. In defending Obamaâs Libya offensive, they are compromising their own morals. The American left is also making it abundantly clear that it does not find all wars morally reprehensible â only those begun by Republicans.
Methinks thou art obtuse. You're just a partisan hack trying to wear a thinker's shoes. And you quote sources with the same fashion sense.
What i find funny about the article is not the hypocrisy of the left, as you tend to see this kind of hypocrisy on both sides. What i find funny is that the left wing media instantly tried to label the entire Tea Party racist as though the only thing that changed is the skin color of the president, and as if right wing protestors dont largely go to bat against left wing presidents, just as left wing protestors go to bat against right wing presidents. Im curious as to whether or not the same shitheads in the left wing media will now come to the conclusion that all left wingers hate white people, since we all know the only thing that really changed is the presidents skin color.
It's like this. In the early days of the Tea Party, which coincided with Obama stepping into office, give or take, there were gatherings taking place of increasingly larger size. A number of the members were spewing racist epithets, slogans and signs. None of the members took umbrage in the early days. Neither did their party leaders. It was only when outsiders began to take frequent notice that the shepherds asked their flock to settle down and behave. But here's the thing. While it was going on, it is safe to say that the specific people who were uttering their racial slurs or holding up racist signs were indeed racist. And the people right next to them, who were apparently not affected in the least and not even so much to turn their heads and give pause, well, they're racist, too. Oh, yeah, they are. Otherwise they would at least either have said something or moved elsewhere into the crowd. What's the circumference cut-off point? Hard to say. But when you see those signs, both the sign holders and their immediate and nearby neighbors in the crowd were all either uniformly smiling or frowning, depending on the moment. They were as one.
This cannot be denied. The left is further polarizing the kind folks that believed in hope and change. I know life long hardcore NY city liberals who are in total disgust with the democrat party. Its amazing really. W and the big O combined have crushed both sides loyalists in just over a decade. Im not talking about the left or right media or lobbyists..etc. But normal folks are totally dejected with the entire process.
I think when you add the Haliburton ingredient to Scarboroughs essay it puts a thumb on the scale tilting it away from his hopes for a nails it theme.
So then obviously for the sake of being fair when playing that guilt by association game, then you must consider Obama a racist who hates America for having attended Reverend Wrights churc h for so many years and only doing something about it when Wright became a political liability. Or is this just another one of your glaringly obvious double standards where you only use the guilt by association thing when it benefits you/slanders your opponents?
Let's not forget Obama's relationship with terrorist William Ayers, former head of a communist revolutionary group. Obama speaks highly of him and says many of his views were formulated under the leadership of Ayers. Guilt by association eh? How we do like them apples?