Beinart's Fighting Faith - hardly original

Hey all,

Just sent the following letter to TNR, regarding Peter Beinart's now-famous article calling for a transformation of the Democratic Party. I think I've finally sent them something that they won't print, so enjoy:

Peter Beinart is to be commended for his recent, courageous stance advocating a more muscular Democratic approach to foreign policy, which would fully acknowledge - and work to destroy - the threat posed to the world by Al Qaeda and militant Islam. However, it is somewhat ironic that Beinart is now considered the leading proponent of “fighting liberalism,” as he was TNR’s most vocal disparager of the Democrat who prominently voiced a similar position even before the colossal Democratic failure in Election 2004 - namely, Georgia Senator Zell Miller. Granted, Miller’s rousing speech at the RNC contained a number of inaccuracies, and his fiery rhetorical delivery might have struck some reasonable people as intemperate. But, significantly, these were not the grounds upon which Beinart savaged Miller in two separate columns. Rather, Beinart impugned Miller’s speech, and his integrity, because of two elements within it that Beinart first mischaracterized and has now essentially co-opted as keys to his vision of a transformed Democratic Party.

On October 11, Beinart - in an unconvincing, almost paranoid parsing of Miller’s speech - accused Miller of supporting an “antidemocratic vision” because of his statement that “while young Americans are dying…our nation is being torn apart and made weaker because of the Democrats' manic obsession to bring down our commander-in-chief.” But a straightforward reading of Miller’s statement yields only his belief that Democrats were wrongly prioritizing defeating the President above fighting America’s real, external enemies. Or, as Beinart himself now puts it in rebuking certain of his fellow Democrats: “the litmus test of a decent left,” is “the realization that liberals face an external enemy more grave, and more illiberal, than George W. Bush.”

In late September, Beinart objected to Miller’s assertion that “No one should dare to even think about being commander-in-chief of this country if he doesn't believe with all his heart that our soldiers are liberators.” Beinart, here as well, (mis)construed Miller’s statement as a plea for quashing criticism of the administration’s policies: “He was urging Americans to reelect Bush because the president believes Iraq has been a success and Kerry has doubts.” Of course, Miller neither said nor implied any such thing. Indeed, Miller was not commenting upon the success of American operations in Iraq; rather, he was commenting upon the purpose of the mission, which - Miller said - was to liberate the country from tyranny (not occupy it), contrary to the belief of “today’s Democratic leaders.” And, once again, Beinart now echoes Miller’s critique, lecturing the “softs” of the Democratic Party: “Islamist totalitarianism--like Soviet totalitarianism before it--threatens the United States and the aspirations of millions across the world. And, as long as that threat remains, defeating it must be liberalism's north star.”

In the end, sensible Americans - Republicans and Democrats - should welcome support for the task of defeating totalitarianism Islam from whatever corners it should arise, and from that perspective, Beinart’s piece is most welcome. But, for the record, months before Beinart’s tract appeared, it was Miller who spoke the uncomfortable truths about the Democratic Party that Beinart now parrots; it was Miller who invoked the memory of freedom-fighting Democrats like FDR and Harry Truman as models that Democrats should be (but aren’t) emulating; and perhaps most significantly, it was Miller - and not Beinart - who spoke these truths about his party before the election, calculating that the good of the country compelled him to help undermine the electoral fortunes of his own misguided party.

Beinart should reread Miller’s speech; he might be surprised to find that Miller’s “demagogic argument” is not so different from his own.

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