Reply #4: Here's another hit piece from DLC's 'Progressive Policy Institute'... [View All]

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"Most rank-and-file Democrats, of course, are just as patriotic and zealous about vindicating our national honor as any Republican. But let's be honest: Cultural elites with influence in the party often give off more than a whiff of fashionable anti-Americanism. They tend to equate patriotism with jingoism, see America more as a global bully than as a victim of a terrorist conspiracy, haul out the tired Vietnam metaphor anytime U.S. troops encounter difficulty abroad, and are as hypercritical of America's faults as they are forgiving of those of our adversaries.

Take Iraq. It's one thing to say, as many thoughtful Democrats do, that the war in Iraq was a mistake. But it's quite another to depict it as the expression of a new U.S. imperialism, or as a Bush family vendetta, or as a plot to grab Middle East oil, or, most ludicrously of all, as a pretext to enrich Halliburton. What leftish elites smugly imagine is a sophisticated view of their country's flaws strikes much of America as a false and malicious cartoon. And while heartland voters may be too reluctant to hear reasoned criticism of U.S. policies, they are essentially right in believing that America has mostly been an indispensable force for good in the world. So let the glitterati in Hollywood and Cannes fawn over Michael Moore; Democrats should have no truck with the rancid anti-Americanism of the conspiracy-mongering left.

Will Marshall is president of the Progressive Policy Institute.

http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=253055&kaid=127&subid=171