Contrary to the manufactured air-kissing, hugging party unity displayed in Boston, real Liberals, the fire-breathing, card-carry throwbacks to the New deal and Great Society are not happy with Kerry's campaign. Not one bit. Lewis Lapham, editor of Harper's Magazine, has a real humdinger guest op-ed in the current issue of Roll Call. [subscription req'd]
Kerry, Democratic Party Need to Embrace ‘Liberal’But those were the days when the word “liberal” was not yet politically incorrect, before the tools necessary to the Democratic job went missing on the construction site of Ronald Reagan’s Magic Kingdom, when the American people were still being asked to vote for a president of their own country, not for “the leader of the free world,” which, as even Barbra Streisand knows, is a job reserved for a Republican.
Alone among the speakers to the convention on Monday night, Jimmy Carter, the last of the applicants for the position of Democratic president of the United States, wasn’t afraid to recognize George Bush as a lying imbecile or to say that in this year’s election what is “at stake is nothing less than our nation’s soul.” Not only its soul, but also its existence, both as an idea and as a set of map coordinates marking out the space in which to conduct what Benjamin Franklin knew to be the sometimes disorderly and impolitic experiments with freedom.
By electing a more compassionate conservative or a more moderate and intelligent Republican, the Democratic Party might regain its hold on power, find its way back to the fountains and reflecting pools of federal patronage in Washington. It wouldn’t do the country any favors, wouldn’t replenish its wealth or save its soul. The task in hand requires a president not embarrassed by the name of liberal, and if the convention wishes to lend meaning to its own best and brightest words, it will send John Kerry out of the hall as a genuinely Democratic candidate, not as a figure of Bill Clinton’s pretty speech.
One can only hope Kerry takes their advice. Big Time.
Posted by feste at July 31, 2004 01:53 PM | TrackBack
> real Liberals, the fire-breathing, card-carry
> throwbacks to the New deal and Great Society
AKA "Commie Rats."
Don't be afraid to say it.
:)
-
-
Okay, you're right, they're not simply America haters.
I was recently re-reading Reagan's early speeches about the dangers in communism/socialism infiltrating and overtaking the liberal establishment. He hit it right on the money. Reagan managed to win a few lasting battles but the left regained control of education and is inculcating leftist dogma along with the ABC's.
If we don't re-elect Bush and the left appoints a Supreme or two we will be in for decades of legislating from the bench and the majority's rights will be trampled.
Posted by: feste at August 3, 2004 01:39 PM