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June 01, 2005
More from the Patriotic Left: America the Diseased!
Last summer Christopher Hitchens said, of Farenheit 9/11:
To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of "dissenting" bravery.
I was thinking about this when I read Thomas Friedman's latest, which gives this as its "bottom line":
We urgently need a national commission to look at all the little changes we have made in response to 9/11 - from visa policies to research funding, to the way we've sealed off our federal buildings, to legal rulings around prisoners of war - and ask this question: While no single change is decisive, could it all add up in a way so that 20 years from now we will discover that some of America's cultural and legal essence - our DNA as a nation - has become badly deformed or mutated?
Why the alarm about America's "cultural and legal essence"? For the most part, Friedman cites the hurt feelings he’s noticed abroad, his observation that Londoners want the Americans to "Go away"; Visa-related hassles and "the corrosive impact…security restrictions were having on foreigners' perceptions of America" and so on.
This is quintessential liberalism: some anecdotes, criticism, self-doubt, introspection, yet more doubt and finally: blame America. (Just ask Europe! America is broken!)
But is it argument? Are we to look to a few anecdotes to believe such a serious diagnosis? I don't doubt Tom Friedman is a smart guy, but some alarming logical lapses are on display here. And we hardly have to guess why Friedman indulges: he believes President Bush is bringing the U.S. down, and in his world the signs are everywhere. It's an offshoot of the mantra Michael Moore gave us last summer with Farenheit 911. Such, too, is the state of the left's cheerleading squad known as the NY Times editorial room.
And they expect people to pay for this stuff? Geez.
Posted by bill at June 1, 2005 05:48 PM
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