Democrats and Our Enemies (Joe Lieberman Op-Ed)

Wall Street Journal ^ | May 21, 2008 | Senator Joseph Lieberman

[RWR8189]

How did the Democratic Party get here? How did the party of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy drift so far from the foreign policy and national security principles and policies that were at the core of its identity and its purpose?

Beginning in the 1940s, the Democratic Party was forced to confront two of the most dangerous enemies our nation has ever faced: Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. In response, Democrats under Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy forged and conducted a foreign policy that was principled, internationalist, strong and successful.

This was the Democratic Party that I grew up in – a party that was unhesitatingly and proudly pro-American, a party that was unafraid to make moral judgments about the world beyond our borders. It was a party that understood that either the American people stood united with free nations and freedom fighters against the forces of totalitarianism, or that we would fall divided.

This was the Democratic Party of Harry Truman, who pledged that "it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures."

[Robert A Cook PE]

There are many however, who would point out that Truman's/Roosevelt's democrat party (and its State Dept leadership in particular!) DID heavily support the Communists at home and abroad, and that Kennedy was not all that effective in opposing it in the early 60’s ....

[moonman]

Lieberman had a great chance of leaving the Dims and getting a leadership role with the Pubbies a few years back and he balked at the offer. At the end of the day, regardless of his ‘defend America and Isreal’ speeches, he remains a Cult member, plain and simple.

[sergeantdave]

FDR also advanced rule by unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats - a dictatorship. I simply can’t put forward a worse president than the fascist FDR.

If FDR had been around in 1776, the founders would have considered him a royalist Tory and hanged him.

[norton]

I actually like Joe Lieberman but he lost me with:

"President Clinton and his advisers slowly but surely came to recognize that American intervention, and only American intervention, could stop Slobodan Milosevic and his campaign of ethnic slaughter, Democratic attitudes about the use of military force in pursuit of our values and our security began to change. "

My values do not include bombing people who have done me no wrong simply because they want their property back.

(Or because I need to shift attention away from my own transgressions.)

[norton]

I actually like Joe Lieberman but he lost me with:

"President Clinton and his advisers slowly but surely came to recognize that American intervention, and only American intervention, could stop Slobodan Milosevic and his campaign of ethnic slaughter, Democratic attitudes about the use of military force in pursuit of our values and our security began to change. "

My values do not include bombing people who have done me no wrong simply because they want their property back.

(Or because I need to shift attention away from my own transgressions.)

[Napoleon Solo]

It’s not so plain and not so simple.

[avacado]

"A great Democratic secretary of state, Dean Acheson, once warned "no people in history have ever survived, who thought they could protect their freedom by making themselves inoffensive to their enemies." This is a lesson that today's Democratic Party leaders need to relearn."

Worth repeating.

[neverdem]

BTTT!

[endthematrix]

"This is a totally disgusting statement. "

Ditto.

"only American intervention..."

Riiiiight. It was Europe in the 1990's. They can police their own backyard.

[1066AD]

Maybe, but on the other hand, here in 2008, we might collectively gain as it could put a dent in the destructive partisanship that’s causing national problems to lie unaddressed.

I recently read “Common Ground” by Bob Beckel and Cal Thomas, there was a lot to agree with in that book.

[Lumper20]

Thanks for your post. I recall my late father born in 1918, who was a three war combat vet. His comments about FDR were basically that FDR told Americans- “ sit on your ass, smoke a camel, welcome to the promised land.” That is exactly what I recall.

[Lumper20]

Sorry I forgot the first part.

F.R. Roosevelt said, “Lay down your shovel, sit on your ass, light up a camel, this is the promised land.”

[PatrickF4]

...proudly pro-American, a party that was unafraid to make moral judgments about the world beyond our borders.

It has become the vogue in intellectual circles, and thus to the Democratic Party Elite, that Relativism - the belief that there is no ground for moral judgment beyond our culturally conditioned reactions, should dictate our national policy. The Democratic Party is no longer about being pro-American,, as we generally understood up until the past 30 or 40 years. It's rather about changing what pro-American means. It means not being a superpower, it means that patriotism, as it is generally understood, is xenophobia and imperialism (it can work both ways, apparently).

So, to understand why progressives do not see America as a great nation, and why they will sacrifice our national interests, remember they are citizens of the World first. If they think that the World is somehow injured by American power, they will attack it. They are traitors to our national interest. They want power to tear American down, to cleanse it of the evil (that supposedly does not exist in a Relativist world view). They claim we cannot have morality, when, at the same time, they proclaim their own morality to supersede our national interest.