What's wrong with Liberalism and what to do about it

Interesting article in the New Republic on how Democrats went from the "bear any burden" JFK to the "let's have a summit" JFK:

By 1949, three years after Winston Churchill warned that an "iron curtain" had descended across Europe, Schlesinger could write in The Vital Center: "Mid-twentieth century liberalism, I believe, has thus been fundamentally reshaped ... by the exposure of the Soviet Union, and by the deepening of our knowledge of man. The consequence of this historical re-education has been an unconditional rejection of totalitarianism."

However, three years after a new totalitarian threat was brought home to us on 9-11:

...Liberalism has still not "been fundamentally reshaped" by the experience. On the right, a "historical re-education" has indeed occurred--replacing the isolationism of the Gingrich Congress with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney's near-theological faith in the transformative capacity of U.S. military might. But American liberalism, as defined by its activist organizations, remains largely what it was in the 1990s--a collection of domestic interests and concerns. ...There is little liberal passion to win the struggle against Al Qaeda--even though totalitarian Islam has killed thousands of Americans and aims to kill millions; and even though, if it gained power, its efforts to force every aspect of life into conformity with a barbaric interpretation of Islam would reign terror upon women, religious minorities, and anyone in the Muslim world with a thirst for modernity or freedom.

I'm always interested in articles that can help me explain why I switched so quickly and so thoroughly from the Dems to the Reps. Obviously, it was something to do with 9-11, but it's nice to have the deep thinkers lay it all out. The right is trying to deal with the new situation, while too many on the left refuses to recognize that there is a new situation. It must be so frustrating to be Joe Biden or Joe Lieberman.

I am often left puzzling over how Liberals can side with the most illiberal force since... I was going to say Nazism, but while there are quite a few similarities, the Nazis at least had their own twisted version of fun. Polka bands and Wagner and naked women on horse back. The Taliban was the death of fun. The Nazis had their own twisted version of science. Sure, they measured people's heads to determine if they were Jewish, but they also went from prop planes to jet planes over the course of the war. The Taliban was the death of science.

I hope it's obvious that I'm not defending Nazis. I'm just pointing out that Liberals have always taken a hard-line against fascism and before Vietnam, they took a hard-line against communism. Why on earth will they not take a hard-line against an equally odious ideology?

The Republicans are vulnerable to attack by a cold war type of liberalism.

Bush has not increased the size of the U.S. military since September 11--despite repeated calls from hawks in his own party--in part because, given his massive tax cuts, he simply cannot afford to. An anti-totalitarian liberalism would attack those tax cuts not merely as unfair and fiscally reckless, but, above all, as long-term threats to America's ability to wage war against fanatical Islam. Today, however, there is no liberal constituency for such an argument in a Democratic Party in which only 2 percent of delegates called "terrorism" their paramount issue and another 1 percent mentioned "defense."

Count me among that 3%. I think Lieberman had a good shot at Bush. But he had no shot at the Democratic noomination. Guess that's why I had to vote Bush.

Update: Andrew Sullivan publishes a letter from a Dem:

"Only one problem with Beinart's thesis. People like me will not vote for the kind of Democrat he pines for. And people like me are the base of the Democratic party. I would not vote for Joe Lieberman or any Iraq-war supporting Democrat (that includes Hillary, by the way). People like me are the mirror images of the Republican right. We would rather lose than sacrifice our principles."

Then lose you will. That's what Beinart is saying.

Update: Okay, one snarky comment about the article. The author goes on about how Kerry had positioned himself as a liberal war hawk (mainly through his choice of advisors), but because the Iraq War was unpopular, hawkishness became unpopular with the Democratic base. So Kerry voted against the $87 billion to lure the lefties back from Dean. According to the author, one of the main problems with this action was that "...it helped the Bush campaign paint him as unprincipled".

Yes, that's right. Trying to win a primary by voting to deny the military the money it needs to successfully prosecute a war you were in favor of until it became politically unpopular isn't an unprincipled action. Voters only considered it sleazy because Karl Rove painted that highly moral action as unprincipled. Bad Karl.