Josh Marshall, CalPundit, myself and others have been called doves. This irks me, much as it does Josh. "Anyone who's even casually familiar with my writing on the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Democratic party's continuing deficit on serious national security thinking, and in TPM generally would know this is false." Of course, those are Josh's words. However, anyone who has read The Agonist knows where I stand. I've written about it here, here, here and here among other places, including my three part series on what I would have done after Afghanistan, here, here and here.
What I have called for is a robust foreign policy that is true to our core values. It is a policy that is very similar to the one Bush talks about having. But as I wrote here in a response to the Oxbloggers, his actions do not come close to his words.
Now, I am not irked too much by the fact that David labeled me a dove. He was respectable about it and proffered much praise. Not to mention a nice link.
I am irked nonetheless. Conservatives can call me a dove all they want; however, it is only an attempt to invalidate my criticisms of this administration's faults. Faults that are not going away anytime soon.
Sure, there is a lot of grand rhetoric in Bush's pronouncements, but when anyone criticizes them they are immediately demonized. Sound familiar? Probably because Bush's faults resemble Clinton's in this way. There is also no follow through (much like Clinton)--North Korea is an excellent example, as Josh has detailed so well, here, here and here. There is only politics and spin.
Which is funny because this is the same thing the Neocons call for. The only difference is that this president isn't a Neocon and never will be. His words, as I have said before, don't correspond to his actions. And they'll continue not to. The Neocons are just beginning to see this. And if Bush abandons Iraq the same way he abandoned Afghanistan the disillusionment might become overwhelming. The Neocons will then jump ship, much like they did once before.
More on this later.
Posted by Sean-Paul @ 01/03/2003 05:17 PM
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