Buckley's Blind Spot
There was a time when I had some respect for William F. Buckley, although I can't for the life of me remember why. I was much younger then, and more naive; I probably was impressed by all the words he managed to write, and that funny way he has of talking without moving that part of his mouth where one would normally find lips on most people.
In his piece "Look Who's Voting" that I read at Yahoo! News, he apparently was excited about the voting in Iraq that was going on when he wrote it. To celebrate, he began by ruminating on the nature of democracy:
Some years ago my guest on "Firing Line" was Gen. Vernon Walters. … He remarked, in passing, that no democratic government had ever initiated aggression against another nation.
Fascinating! I thought. Walters' remarks were, of course, made long before our current President elected to invade Iraq for reasons that remain unknown to reality-based people like myself. Here, I thought, Buckley is going to have a few astringent words of criticism for our war-monger-in-chief. Obviousy, the fact that I might even entertain that notion makes clear that I've been brainwashed to a squeaky-clean shine by the "liberal media".
He got off to such a good start, too:
I was stunned by this statement, and as the exchange proceeded, attempted to run my skeptical memory over it. Surely it could not be so? But so — it is. And that revelation by Gen. Walters orients us properly in the matter of the election in Iraq on Sunday.
Of course, the "but so — it is" did manage to slip quickly and deftly around the counter-example that's so large, Buckley apparently can't see it: America's own invasion of Iraq.
Tsk tsk. The rest of the piece turned into some limp-worded bagatelle about how wonderful it is that democracy has at last begun (one doesn't want to be over hasty) to arrive in Iraq, and shouldn't Iraq's neighbors breathe more easily now that Iraq is a democracy and, applying the Walters Theory of Invasion, no longer a threat to them, and why aren't the europeans more grateful to us for that which we have wrought?
What's wrong, can't they see the obvious when it's right in front of them?