Wednesday, July 30, 2003
(1:38 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Wrong Again, Josh Marshall
Josh Marshall, author of Talking Points Memo, has a post that makes the following dubious claim:
As if we didn't have enough signs that the administration's priorities on the war on terrorism are seriously out of whack, now this.
The "this" to which Dr. Marshall refers is evidence that a number of ground-level terrorism prevention techniques (for instance, undercover air marshalls) are facing budget cuts. Apparently Marshall would prefer for us to nickle-and-dime terrorists, rather than government programs, which are the most permanent and insidious enemy of our nation. What he fails to recognize is that this is a war -- it is not a problem to be solved by changes in US policy or by normal law-enforcement measures. When the Germans endangered the entire world order, as Iraq did a few short months ago (for those of us, like Josh Marshall, with no sense of history), we did not increase law enforcement in the homeland. We went to where they were, and like always, we kicked their asses. That's the way a war works.
What he fails to recognize in his implicit dismissal of the war on terrorism is that terrorism, like communism, is a radical problem that needs a radical solution. The Bush Administration's approach to the war on terror helps to finally rid us of both -- the source of terrorism abroad, as well as the communism that has infected the American soul (Social Security, Medicare, federal regulatory agencies, the belief that the President should be the man who won the last popular election, etc.). Since we are conveniently in a war, the military (the only legitimate use of government) cannot have its budget cut, so in order to maintain the tax cuts that are clearly in the process of saving our economy, we will have to cut all those so-called "programs" that sap our national resolve and make us into European-style sucklers of the government teat.
Sadly, we cannot immediately cut those programs, due to the tedious ritual of presidential "elections." Following the teachings of Machiavelli, Bush has appealled to the socialist soul of America by proposing a new entitlement that (conveniently) won't take effect in 2006. He has his "bases covered" and will be able to renege on the prescription drug plan at his leisure after being elected. Then, finally, we will be rid of the last vestiges of communism and be that much stronger as we prosecute the war on terror. Sorry: War on Terror.
Anyway, Josh Marshall is clearly blind to the fact that another terrorist attack is exactly what we need to re-rally the US public behind our president's plan to radically and permanently restructure American society. On this plan hinges our very eternal salvation -- and he's hopelessly stuck on moderate, practical means to prevent future terrorist attacks on America. Now whose priorities are "out of whack"?
