Wednesday, January 2
The left, both on and off campus, has been reduced to a state of ethical insolvency — followed by silence — in the aftermath of September 11. The roll call of published idiotic remarks by the likes of Mary Beard, Eric Foner, Frederic Jameson, Barbara Kingsolver, Arundhati Roy, Edward Said, Susan Sontag, Alice Walker, and a host of others has revealed that the luminaries of today's Western cultural and intellectual establishment are not merely ignorant of politics, history, and culture, but often downright immature, hysterical, and inarticulate
The theory goes like this. Our enemy in Afghanistan is religious extremism and intolerance. It's therefore more important than ever to honor the ideals of tolerance — religious, sexual, racial, reproductive — at home. The GOP is out of the mainstream, some Democrats will argue [this] year, because it's too dependent upon an intolerant 'religious right,'" Mr. Fineman said.
"This is an incendiary battle plan — essentially comparing the GOP right with the Taliban — designed to draw an outraged response from the president. Then Democrats would have Bush just where they wanted him: in a firefight at home."