"Useful Idiots" Make Great Saboteurs

For a time I thought that the media's disingenuous reporting on Iraq was mainly because of liberals' implacable hatred for George W. Bush. Although I still believe this hatred to be real, I have come to realize that the media have practiced the art of disingenuity and America hatred for nearly as long as the current United States president has been alive. And this understanding has further increased my confidence, that despite the slow process, abetted by treason in our midst, we can still win the battle for liberty in Iraq.

Do the American news media report inaccurately about Iraq because they hate George W. Bush? Generally, yes. Do they report disingenously because they hate the Republican party? Generally, yes. Do they do so because they harbor a hatred of America? Generally, yes. It would be inaccurate to say, however, that these feelings of hatred for our president, his party, and our country are recent occurrences. In fact, liberals of every stripe--political, news reportage, and hollywood entertainer--have despised the moral absolutes espoused by America for a lot longer than that.

This concept became clear to me when I recently began reading the book Useful Idiots by Mona Charen. The same sentiments, the same dismay at American success, and the same indigestion experienced by liberals now as they watch Iraq move closer to freedom were exhibited in a similar manner as we fought in and returned from Viet Nam, and as the Ursulan behemoth formerly known as the Soviet Union imploded and hundreds of thousands of her minions escaped her evil clutches to enjoy the light of a new day.

It is offensive to a moral relativist to contrast something good with something evil. In the mind of the average American, the Soviet Union was a patently wicked fraud, and it was with great joy that we watched her collapse from the heights of seeming invincibility. But to the average liberal, the collapse of the beast was both a day of sadness and a day of backpedaling. Sadness, because it proved all of their personally-held theories wrong, and backpedaling, because they didn't want to be on the doofus side of history. Liberals continue their role as Useful Idiots for evil as they still struggle with these two addictions 20 years later.

The liberal backlash began during the Vietnam war. Likely the watershed event of the turnabout, the Tet Offensive became known--incorrectly--as an American defeat. Despite the loss of thousands of Communist Vietnamese in the offensive, Walter Cronkite and others of his politically puny stature somehow convinced most Americans that the North Vietnamese had won. Protests against President Nixon, mainly on college campuses, were strident until 1973, when Nixon declared the military draft ended, and college students no longer felt worried that they might have to serve their country.

During this time, our position in the world, especially vis a vis the Soviet Union, looked very bleak. The words "containment", "detente", and "peaceful cooexistence" were foisted by liberals into our social vocabulary.

As soon as we came home from Nam, the focus began to shift to the "invincible" Soviet Union. Liberals of every stripe found something positive (and overlooked the daunting negatives) of every Soviet leader from Brezhnev to Gorbachev. Ted Turner ejaculated that "Gorbachev has ...moved faster than any person in the history of the world. Moving faster that Jesus Christ did." CNN's Stuart Loory laughably reported that "the [Soviet] people have been truly converted" to Communism. Some even gushed that Gorbachev had a "blueprint for saving the planet" despite the gargantuan damage Communism had caused to the environment. (Charen, Useful Idiots, pp. 111-119)

On top of all this, when Ronald Reagan became president of the United States, the news media, all democracts, and even some republicans were very embarrassed that he had won, and became enraged when he challenged the Soviet Union with such statements as

• "the only morality [Communists] recognize is what will further their cause, meaning they reserve unto themselves the right to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat." (Interestingly, the same could be said of Saddam Hussein, the insurgency, Osama Bin Laden, and the late, late, late Father Mousab al Zarqawi.)
• "the Soviet Union runs against the tide of history by denying human freedom and human dignity to its citizens. It is also in deep economic difficulty." (Deja vu! Liberals today are so invested in the same theory of America-is-bad that they almost completely ignored documentation found with Zarqawi's body that admitted similar difficulties that the terrorist insurgency is facing.
  

It is somewhat miraculous to contemplate that the United States, despite odds equivalent to a basketball game where one team has five players and the other has 1,000, observed the downfall of the Soviet Union rather than vice versa. The great Soviet fall onto the ash heap of history was very slow in coming because at every turn, another American traitor was abetting the enemy and criticizing the United States for attempting to turn back the tide of despotism and debauchery around the globe.

Funny I should have mentioned that. The great fall of the post-Saddam insurgency is taking much longer than it should as well, and for chiefly the very same reason. Lazy amorality has convinced liberals that it would be mean to share liberty with other people.

They are once and again Useful Idiots for the freedom-destroyers. And just like forty years ago, Useful Idiots make great saboteurs.