Robert Tracinski presents a thought-provoking analysis with some excellent observations on the Democratic party.
On John Edwards, the happy populist, he writes:
Edwards eventually withdrew from the Democratic race–but the success he achieved, launching himself from relative obscurity to a prominent position on the national stage, indicates the nature of the choice Democratic voters made in this year’s primary. The Democrats want a candidate who represents the morality of envy, hatred of achievement, worship of sacrifice—but they want a representative who will present that morality with an attractive, wholesome, appealing face. [“Fine Young Cannibals: How the Democratic Party Put a Nice Face on the Morality of Sacrifice”, TIA, March 15, 2004]
On Howard Dean, the angry populist:
…Dean’s message was the unabashed, unrestrained voice of what some conservative columnists have dubbed the “Angry Left.” This phrase, promoted over the past year by conservative commentators like James Taranto, is a non-essential description: it designates the far left by its emotions, not by its ideas. But the term has caught on because it names a prominent characteristic of today’s left. The leftist establishment, under the influence of the New Left, has dispensed with the pretense that it is a movement based on intellectualism—that it seeks “scientific socialism” based on a study of the inevitable trends of history (the terms in which the Marxist Old Left presented itself). This intellectualist left has largely been replaced by an emotionalist left. Sometimes this takes the form of maudlin emotional appeals to the plight of the poor and the sick-but the dominant emotions of today’s left are anger and hatred. Dean was the voice of this leftist emotionalism. [TIA]
On the uniter of the two, John Kerry, and the reason for his consistent waffling:
There is a consistent theme that binds together Kerry’s public statements and voting record. Waffling is not the essence of Kerry’s career; instead, his dissembling is merely a smokescreen to keep voters from detecting the cause to which he has shown a lifelong ideological commitment: anti-Americanism….
…In Kerry’s view, the American belief in the righteous use of force against evil–the sense of life represented by John Wayne–is the expression of a society twisted by hatred and the glorification of brutality, a society that had to be humbled by forcing an American surrender in Vietnam.
…John Kerry is the candidate who stands for American self-immolation on the altar of international collectivism.
What makes Kerry think he can get away with it? And what makes the Democrats who voted for him in this year’s primaries think he is the most “electable” candidate? Kerry has known, ever since he returned from Vietnam, that he has one indispensable advantage he can exploit to keep the public from recognizing the meaning of his policies: his military service.
…Kerry is the candidate of American self-immolation, disguised as a war hero.
For the full article click here.
From Cox and Forkum:
