Pink pander

Washington Monthly, April, 2003 by Jamie Malanowski

Charen wonders why liberals were so weak on communism when they had been so strong against Nazism. She argues that Nazis were "the perfect enemy for America," bemuse their beliefs were so antithetical to our ideals. "But Communism paid lip service to liberty, and pretended to achieve equality. Communists in America participated in the civil rights movement and seemed on the right side of the conflict in South Africa" She should think a little harder about her observation. Yes, communists were liberals' friends; but more importantly, anti-communists were the liberals' enemies. Most anti-communists were also anti-labor. Most were anti-integration. Most supported a lot of repressive regimes in the name of anti-communism. There are a lot of issues on which anti-communists undermined their own moral authority. Liberals need to come to terms with their mistakes about communism, but conservatives have a lot of laundry to wash as well. I doubt we'll see a Regnery book on that subject, though.

Charen is weakest when she tries to argue that in the same way liberals were wrong about communism, they are wrong about Islamism. She cites a number of things liberals like Michael Moore said after 9/11 that seem to her to be patently stupid. They seem stupid to me, too, but so do things that Jerry Falwell and Ann Coulter said. Among the comments Charen finds objectionable is this one by Norman Mailer: "Americans should reflect on and try to understand why so many people feel a revulsion toward the U.S." Mailer may be a member in good standing of the Blame America First crowd that gives a life purpose to folks like Charen, but it doesn't seem to me that figuring out how American policies contributed to the tangle of problems we're facing puts one in the al Qaeda Booster Club.

Liberals are not apt to read Useful Idiots, and that's too bad; if they were honest, they would use k to critique their own assumptions and proclivities. Of course, if Mona Charen were honest, she would similarly critique her own.

JAMIE MALANOWSKI is a New York writer.