The Christopher Hitchens Democrats

Yesterday, Lawrence F. Kaplan published an editorial in the WSJ subtitled, ““How did fighting terrorism become a Republican cause”?

Some Democrats may think that’s unfair, but honestly I think Kaplan’s right on target. For whatever reason, about 1/3rd to 1/2 of the Democratic party, maybe even more, seem to almost dogmatically opposed to every attempt that’s being made to defend America. They battle even the mildest security measures because they claim it’ll create a police state. They incessantly complain about any increases in military or intelligence funding. Furthermore, they are dead-set against attacks on America’s enemies, although they’re clearly not pacifists given that they happily back using America’s military in places we have no interest, like Somalia, Bosnia, & Liberia. In fact, their positions often have more in common with those of America’s enemies than people concerned about our national defense– at least when it comes to defending our country. Even the shock of 9/11 was only enough to shake them out of their stupor for a short period of time, just long enough for us to go after Afghanistan.

Fortunately, there are a lot of Democrats who are as nauseated by these people as the rest of us. I think of Democrats who are willing to cross party lines to vote GOP based on national security as Christopher Hitchens Democrats. Well, you can add another name to the ranks of the “Christopher Hitchens Democrats” — former NYC mayor Ed Koch. Listen to what he had to say on CNN today…

KOCH: …But also, there you’ve got the media attacking Ashcroft for wanting to have the Patriot Act, which gave him additional tools extended. Now, you can discuss individual provisions that you may think are not worthy of being extended, but the people who are smearing Ashcroft and smearing the law, they’re nuts. Their lives are in danger, too, but they don’t care.

KOCH: …Howard Dean is “McGovern 2,” the worst. And I believe that his support comes from that one-third of the Democratic Party that is ultra-left. And everybody knows that.

BLITZER: Well, what about Joe Lieberman?

KOCH: I like Joe Lieberman. He came to see me when he was deciding whether or not to run. And I said, I love you, you are the conscious of the United States Senate, go back there because if you run for president you’re going to lose. I’m voting for Bush. I told him that.

BLITZER: All right, that’s good. Ed Koch, we heard it here.

KOCH: And I don’t have to agree with the domestic program of Bush. I don’t.

As Koch said, he probably disagrees with Bush on most things not related to the war on terrorism, but he understands that Bush is determined to defend America and the Democrats aren’t. That’s a fundamental difference between Bush and someone like Howard Dean or John Kerry and I have to think that there are a lot of Democrats who understand that and are going to vote accordingly in 2004.

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