Liberalism

THE DAILY STANDARD welcomes letters to the editor. Letters will be edited for length and clarity and must include the writer's name, city, and state.

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To me, a 25 year USAF veteran and recent retiree, the most significant aspect of the offensive use of the Predator detailed in Christian Lowe's article (A New Breed of Predator) is that it was initiated not by any of the U.S. armed services, but by the CIA.

SINCE TAKING OVER Congress in 1995, the Republican party has proven itself mostly inept at using the power of the federal purse to pursue conservative goals. But the Solomon Amendment, the 1996 brainchild of former New York GOP congressman Gerald Solomon, is now proving to be a notable exception. For some two decades, elite universities have barred the armed forces from their campuses because of both general disdain for the military and disagreement with their personnel policy on gays.

A DEFINING MOMENT isn't about reality, it's about unconscious public perception. For example: Dan Quayle will forever be remembered for his "misspelling" of the word potato, not because it was an important event, but because the public already suspected he might be a dummy. John Ashcroft will forever be a religious nut because the curtain over the boob symbolized what people suspected--that he was a little too devout for centrist America. Never mind that Quayle is both bright and capable or that Ashcroft isn't a Wahhabi nutcase (or that he never asked for the curtain).

IN THEIR EAGERNESS to stop a U.S. invasion of Iraq, antiwar activists have adopted an interesting argument. Containment and deterrence worked against the Soviet Union, they say, and they will work against Saddam Hussein. Now they tell us. The Left's enthusiasm for containment and deterrence was, to put it mildly, a lot harder to detect during the Cold War. To hear born-again cold warriors tell it, everyone agreed in the old days on a get-tough approach to communism. If only.

In point of fact, the U.S.

"THE PAST IS NEVER DEAD, it's not even past," William Faulkner once said. He would have been right at home in the antiwar movement, where the past is now more present than ever, or at least more present than it has been since 1991. Every time war, or the threat of war, or the idea of war presents itself, the past emerges. And not just any old past, but one past in particular: the past of the Vietnam War.

THE BOARD of the Schumann Foundation (president, Bill Moyers) met on Thursday to settle on a strategy that would allow one of its most expensive projects--the leftish American Prospect magazine--to survive in the current political climate. Perhaps the Schumann Foundation wants to cut costs so that it can continue to shower largesse on TomPaine.com (Executive Director, John Moyers, Bill's son).

IT'S A SIGN of how bad things have gotten for the anti-war left that at yesterday's "Prominent Citizens Oppose War with Iraq" press conference, a large placard sat next to the panelists at the front of the room that read: "UN Inspections--Not U.S. War." A little free marketing advice: "Make Love, Not War" was a lot catchier.

The event at the National Press Club in downtown Washington was sponsored by a host of mainstream lefty (is that an oxymoron?) organizations--among them the National Council of Churches, and NOW. It's clear they're in a bind. On the one hand, they hate George W.

Blackpool, England

"THE BASIC VALUES of America are our values too . . . and they are good values." To Americans, that statement by Prime Minister Tony Blair, in his speech to last week's annual Labour party conference, sounds uncontroversial, even banal. But to many of the rank-and-file members of his party, any praise of America, especially in the context of a statement of support for our position on Iraq, is praise too far.

Back around 1990 some British producers started hiring American comics for shows in England at the Queen's Theater (Theatre?) in London. Every two weeks they'd pick three American comics and put them on the bill with three English comics. I did it and loved it, and who wouldn't? You fly first class, stay in a nice hotel, and get well paid for doing your stuff in a grand hall.

EITHER SADDAM HUSSEIN will remain in power or he will be deposed. President Bush has suggested deposing him, but as the debate over that proposal has evolved, an interesting pattern has emerged. The people in the peace camp attack President Bush's plan, but they are unwilling to face the implications of their own. Almost nobody in the peace camp will stand up and say that Saddam Hussein is not a fundamental problem for the world.

IN MARCH, I wrote a piece touting Michael Walzer's provocative essay, "Can There Be a Decent Left?" which appeared in the Spring issue of Dissent magazine. Walzer critiqued the most egregious responses of his fellow lefties to September 11, declaring that the left had "lost its bearings" and needed to "begin again" by jettisoning the "stupid, overwrought, [and] grossly inaccurate" portrait of America it had clung to since the Vietnam war.

IN YESTERDAY'S Washington Times, Jennifer Harper reported that, since December 7, 1941, 200 books have been written about Pearl Harbor. And since September 11, 2001, 400 books have been written about the attacks on that terrible day.