The brutal and senseless terrorist attack in Beslan, Russia, that killed at least 335 people—mostly children—did more than serve as a wake-up call to those who would run and hide from this threat to our very existence. For once, there was even strong condemnation from the Muslim world. Yes, I was surprised and pleased to see that, but I was not at all surprised that there was still one place where this horrific incident wasn’t mentioned at all: the Democratic presidential campaign.
The official blog of Kerry’s campaign is bad enough, with the same tired warmed-over FDR rhetoric along with the assault on Bush, but the recent appearance of his daughter Vanessa on the tube noting that college tuition keeps going up (as if it would matter to her), and the president should be doing something to keep workers’ wages increasing, was too much to bear. The biggest reason that the price of tuition, health care, and prescription drugs keep increasing, of course, is simply because the Left has brought in Uncle Sugar to be the big third party payer. Therefore, you don’t pay directly, but you pay like mad indirectly.
That lesson in basic economics aside, exactly when will the Left acknowledge that terrorism is the biggest issue we face? The short answer is “not soon,” and I can tell you why.
Ever since the Vietnam War, the focal point of the political Left in the United States has been hating their own country. First there was Noam Chomsky, and now there is Michael Moore, but the message is always the same. You name anything wrong, anywhere in the world, and America is to blame.
For reasons that are as old as hubris, weakness of character, and conformity, it is far less of a challenge to appear intellectual if you are negative rather than positive. Thus, far easier to be a muddle-headed atheist than a brilliant theologian; far better to attack the Vietnam War than to defend it (which reached stratospheric proportions when our massive victory in Tet was declared a defeat by Cronkite and the rest of the fellow-travelers); far more cool to talk about our health care crisis than note that you would rather be treated here than in any other country (and so would residents of any other country); far more hip to defend Clinton’s philandering than to argue that imperfection on the part of any commentator does not disqualify him from knowing right from wrong; and much simpler to decry our “oppression” of the world than to acknowledge pure evil.
But even recognizing evil is beyond the comprehension of too much of the Left. Instead of the diamond hard sharp laser line between good and evil, our bankrupt culture has stretched the moral fiber into endless acres of gray. After all, trying to define a standard would be judgmental, wouldn’t it? Moral absolutes are nothing more than the rantings of bigoted dead white men, right?
We’ve all heard this twaddle in college, but evidently, and more’s the pity, a sizable number of our citizens have bought into it. Visit, if you dare, such august Leftist publications as The Nation, read the pathetic drivel of has-been radio talk show host Michael Jackson, and marvel at the sophomoric ignorance and unmitigated hatred of the Democratic Underground.
You could never tell that we are in a war against an implacably evil foe. Instead, you would conclude that our biggest problems are an illegitimate election (somehow decided by their beloved Supreme Court), raging Christian militants, a right-wing media (no kidding) and horrible mega-corporations (that seem to support Democrats, nonetheless). Good luck trying to find a single original or new idea.
Frankly, the absence of talent on the other side is nothing less than shocking, the lack of convictions appalling, and the blindness unforgivable.