That's also why every one of them prefers to talk principle rather than result. That is, in fact, moral cowardice.
Steyn has hit a sore spot here - a sharp point, and it isn't, IMHO, particularly humorous. It is simply this: under the principles of national sovereignty, intervening at Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen to save the Jews was wrong, despite the clear common-sense humanitarian moral imperative to do so. When this sort of dissonance is experienced, it's time to re-examine these principles. But the left refuses do so - and that is the moral cowardice of which I speak.
But I disagree with the notion of "humanitarian moral imperative," even if moderated by "common-sense," as a guide for national involvement in international affairs. I guess I'm a little more "realpolitic," a little less "neocon." Human injustice cries out from around the globe. We should intervene only where our national interest dictates. True enough, the war on terror has certainly expanded the neighborhood, when rag heads in Kabul plan the destruction of the lower end of Manhattan. This we have to crush. And we have to try to leave behind a middle east that will be, at best, a place unlikely to generate the psychopaths of al Qaeda because of a decent social order in their countries, or, at worst, a place that understands that the costs of messing with us are socially unbearable. I believe we should police our nearby region--beginning with the abomination that is Cuba. But the Balkans should be a Europeon responsibility. And Africa must develop regional powers which can play a guardian role. (In theory, Egypt and South Africa could be such, unlikely as that seems now.) I believe it is in our national character to avoid "foreign entanglements" and we should adhere as much as is reasonable to this. Besides, we do the most good, in the moral, as well as physical, sense when we encourage trade and capitalism--our greatest genius.