THE UNRAVELLING MYTH OF LEFTIST "PRINCIPLES"

Jeff Jacoby points out that GWB's "idealism" in striving to make the Middle East more democratic is also practical. Trying to bring about an Iraqi government that is both stable and democratic is undoubtedly a difficult challenge but past American policy that satisfied itself with stability only led to the events of 9/11. John Kerry, by contrast, is stuck in the failed past of American isolationism. So who said that it is conservatives who resist change? They only resist half-baked Leftist proposals for change. At the moment it is the Democrats who are refusing to change from a policy that has obviously failed. Leftists have of course always promoted themselves as idealistic and "principled" but the fact that their idealism and principles have vanished in a puff of smoke now that they see electoral advantage in having no principles should surprise no-one. That the people who supported Stalin and the Soviet system throughout the Cold war were "idealistic" was always a joke.

Wavering British Leftist Roger Simon also notes how the behaviour of most of the Left over Iraq contradicts all that they once claimed to stand for: "Who really is "progressive" anyway, those who have been backing democracy in Iraq or those opposing 'unilateral' intervention in totalitarian states?"

And this site records something that BBC journalists were saying before the Iraq invasion but which BBC managers would not let them put into writing: "The far left was becoming the far right. It had gone as close to supporting Ba'athist fascism as it dared". Again something that would surprise only those deluded souls who thought that the Left had principles.

***************************************