Redstate

By heath Posted in Foreign Affairs — Comments (3) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Senator Joe Lieberman, a tireless advocate for his causes and a statesman in the true sense of the word, has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today bemoaning the path that Democrats have taken in recent years in relation to foreign policy. The entire piece is well worth a read as an analysis of recent American history and the policies that emerge from the synthesis of different world views.

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.

The slow evolution of the Democratic Party's world view, from staunchly patriotic, anti-Communist, and intolerant of moral evil into the "blame America first", relativist, and "American the Imperial Oppressor", is perhaps one of the great transformations of 20th century political philosophy. Lieberman correctly invokes the name of Scoop Jackson as a sinking counterweight to this movement:

Democratic Cold Warriors like Scoop Jackson fought against the tide. But despite their principled efforts, the Democratic Party through the 1970s and 1980s became prisoner to a foreign policy philosophy that was, in most respects, the antithesis of what Democrats had stood for under Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy."

Sen. Lieberman sharply criticizes the harsh ideologues that have yanked the Democratic Party far to the left and the Purist views that excoriate those that do not fall in lockstep with them.

By considering centrism to be collaboration with the enemy – not bin Laden, but Mr. Bush – activists have successfully pulled the Democratic Party further to the left than it has been at any point in the last 20 years.

Lieberman's analysis of the current political landscape is certainly that of a man largely scorned by his Party - or perhaps more appropriately put, that of a man whose Party has left him. But in a week in which recent American history has been largely rewritten (the audacity to rewrite history you don't like?), Sen. Lieberman's proper reminder should be well received.

This post is an excerpt from "Praise and Honors for Our Senators", originally posted at The Everyday Republican