Josh Marshall responds to Peter Beinart’s shriek about Islamic fundamentalists coming to take our women with some agreement and disagreement. But I must admit I’m puzzled by one comment Marshall makes: “The problem is not principally dovishness but rather — as Peter notes — that Democrats are by and large simply not sufficiently interested in national security policy, as such.”
Anyone who was against the war in Iraq was expressing an interest in national security. More importantly, those of us who were informed enough about the global security situation and didn’t find the administration claims of WMD production and stockpiles to be credible were — unlike Beinart and the editorial staff at TNR — correct in our assessment.
That’s not a “dovish” (or as Beinart terms it, “soft”) viewpoint, it was just common sense. Sure, there are wacko peaceniks in the Democratic party, but there are Republicans advocating dropping nuclear weapons on Iraq and the French on the other side. For every Democratic lawmaker Beinart could point to who might be uninformed about national security, I bet you can find a Republican who is just as ill-informed, starting right at the top.
Personally, given how many things he’s been wrong about in his tenure at TNR, I’m astounded that Beinart has the chutzpah to lecture anyone about how Democrats can rebound. He’s the Condoleeza Rice of the the Democratic party.