Democrats' Bind Or Democrats Blind?

The Sunday New York Times features a review by Joe Klein of Peter Beinart's book on how only liberals can win the war on terror. Klein and Beinart are reasonable men, but they're in a bind. They want to beat the terrorists, but as Democrats can't admit George Bush could be doing anything right. This doesn't leave much room to maneuver. (It's not unlike John Kerry saying he'd do things differently in Iraq but when pressed for details, it was pretty much what Bush was already doing.)

Beinart's thesis is we need to look to Harry Truman and his ilk--the liberals who took on communism and ultimately won. Klein approves, but then must do the near-impossible task of explaining how Truman and Bush approach their tasks of fighting a worldwide movement antithetical to freedom and democracy in completely different ways.

There's barely a sentence Klein writes that holds up to analysis. Let's just go straight to his conclusion:

At the end of World War II, America's leaders realized it was no longer possible to retreat behind our oceans[...]. We were indispensable to global stability, and there were difficult choices to be made about how to exercise our power and moral authority. Remarkably, on their very first try, Harry Truman's liberal anti-Communists developed a global leadership strategy that was strong, sophisticated, optimistic and humane.

So how exactly is Bush's plan different?

Strong? No one's claiming Bush isn't showing strength--quite the opposite.

Sophisticated? Truman and his followers fought against communism in all sorts of ways, just as Bush has against terrorism: new rules at home (the difference is those in the 40s and 50s were much tougher on our civil rights), wars, diplomacy (believe it or not we work with other countries on many different levels), etc. Klein has to caricature Bush to pretend his plans, which attempt to deal with the real root cause of the problem (our enemies are raised in unfree countries and taught lies from birth), are based on simplistic and unrealistic expectations--as if the same criticisms, with more jusitifcation, couldn't have been made against the massive project of turning back the tide of communbism, and as if no significant errors were made in this fight. Klein states one thing Truman's people had was patience, but Klein's already run out of patience with Bush.

Optimistic? Once again, most complain Bush has too much optimism, not too little.

Humane? This is funny, since Truman's first big act was to drop atom bombs on civilian populations. Meanwhile, Bush has worked as never before to avoid collateral damage. But what Klein really means is the Marshall plan. Has he not been reading the papers? The outrage in the US is Bush is spending too much to rebuild, not too little.

One must ask precisely what would Klein do differently. I don't mean minor tactics, I mean on a large scale. Would he show our enemies he's not willing to fight? Would he have left Iraq alone, so we could still have a dangerous dictator there on top of all the other problems that exist? Is greater diplomacy the answer (that's the one Bush's opponents always talk about)? If someone could explain to me how giving in to the UN more--when they hate Israel, are bought off by Iraq and don't really care what Iran does--is the answer, please let me know. The fact is, we got all the support we were gonna get for the war--France, Germany and Russia were playing us, hoping, if anything, to give Saddam more freedom.

Here's the truth Beinart and Klein can't--or won't--face: there is a direct line from Truman to today's neocons. If anything, the neocons are the last stand of old-style liberalism. (Remember, neocons are liberals who became disenchanted with where liberalism was going--even Klein and Beinart agree modern liberals have lost their way.) I'd love to see its revival in the Democratic party, but until then, if you want to fight the war on terror seriously, it seems to me there's only one place to go.