How come liberals didn’t give Bush credit for his noble motives in the liberal crusade which was Iraq?

Yesterday we noted that the “conservative” pundit and most prominent media opponent of Obamacare, Charles Krauthammer, had praised Obama for his “noble motives” in proposing the bill. In response to which, James P. writes:

We may note that when Bush invaded Iraq, he acted from a “noble motive,” which was to bring freedom to a suffering people ruled by a vicious dictator, and to liberate the region and the world from the threat of that dictator’s ambitions. Yet somehow liberals never found themselves able to credit Bush for “noble motives.” Instead, they mocked those motives as transparently false and a mere fig-leaf for his actual agenda, which was corrupt and evil and intended to benefit his political cronies. Liberals also argued that the invasion of Iraq was unconstitutional, would bankrupt America, would bring suffering and ruin to Iraq, and would ultimately fail.

Much of the liberal critique of the Iraq war could be applied to “health care reform.” The “reform” is a fig-leaf for Obama’s true agenda, which is designed to benefit his political allies; the reform is unconstitutional; the reform will bankrupt America; the reform will bring suffering and ruin; and, the reform will ultimately fail. Yet the Democrats will hear none of this, and follow Obama as blindly as the Republicans followed Bush into Iraq. When we are bogged down in the health care quagmire, when costs spiral out of control with no victory in sight, no doubt the Democrats will argue for a “surge” in which we cast even more resources into the bottomless pit because we “can’t afford to lose.”

From this analogy, one could draw the conclusion that neither side has a monopoly on good judgment, and that electing Republicans certainly won’t solve our problems unless they are conservatives. These two grand crusades, health care reform and Iraq, have a lot in common because they are both liberal projects for all that Bush was ostensibly a “conservative.” Electoral reaction against health care reform will do no good if the result is election of Republicans who accept liberal premises, or who actively work for the victory of liberalism, like McCain.

LA replies:

If the Republicans who were elected were pledged to repeal the health care bill, that would do plenty of good.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 25, 2010 02:15 PM | Send