Legal Commentary

Beinart Gets It, Many Left Blogs Don't

By Big Tent Democrat

Who'da thunk it? In the Washington Post today, Peter Beinart echoes my thoughts:

When Democrats worry about the backlash that awaits Barack Obama if he defends civil liberties, or endorses withdrawal from Iraq, or proposes unconditional negotiations with Iran, they are seeing ghosts. Fundamentally, the politics of foreign policy have changed.

. . . Because Americans are less afraid and because Republicans have abandoned the foreign policy center, Democrats need not worry that Obama will suffer the fate of George McGovern, Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale or John Kerry. He won't lose because he looks weak. The greater danger is that he will change positions in a bid to look strong -- as he recently did on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act -- and come across as inauthentic and insincere. As Ruy Teixeira and John Halpin have noted, the Democrats' biggest political liability is not that Americans believe they are too liberal but rather that they believe that Democrats don't stand for anything at all. . .

(Emphasis supplied.) It is scary to me that Peter Beinart gets it but some of the Left blogs do not. Which is funny, because the Left blogs were first to recognize this. But now in Obama adoration mode, they forget their original raison d'etre.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on July 06, 2008 (boomark / email).