When I saw this item yesterday, I gave it 24 hours before Greenwald went ballistic at liberal/progressive hypocrisy. Ultimately, it took far fewer than 24:
Is there even a single liberal pundit, blogger or commentator who would have defended George Bush and Dick Cheney if they (rather than Obama) had been secretly targeting American citizens for execution without due process, or slaughtering children, rescuers and funeral attendees with drones, or continuing indefinite detention even a full decade after 9/11? Please. How any of these people can even look in the mirror, behold the oozing, limitless intellectual dishonesty, and not want to smash what they see is truly mystifying to me.
And you know what? He’s right. I just don’t see how anyone can call him or herself a “liberal” all the while approving of limitless executive power, drone strikes against civilians, and widespread abuse of individuals’ rights. It’s fundamentally problematic.
So what owes to liberals’ approval of Barack Obama’s militaristic policies? Barack Obama’s political party, of course. Check this out:
It’s worth comparing the data to older polls. Regarding Guantanamo, overall 70% of respondents agreed with President Obama on keeping Guantanamo open. But in June 2009, more Americans favored closing the facility than keeping it open. In 2006, only 57% of Americans supported using the Guantanamo detention center house accused terrorists. Even in 2003, support was only at 65%. Now, under the leadership of a President who campaigned with the promise to close the facility but reneged, support for the detention center may be at its highest level ever.
The Pew Research Center released a poll last year that demonstrated a similar shift of support by Democrats on the Patriot Act. In 2006 under the Republican Bush, 25% of Democrats viewed the Act as a “necessary tool” and 53% thought it went too far. Five years later under the Democrat Obama, 35% of Democrats said the Act was necessary, while only 40% thought it went too far. Republicans, on the other hand, showed less support for the Act in 2011 than they did under Bush.
One need not be a Democrat to be a hypocrite, as we can see. And one need not be a hypocrite at all if one is a Democrat. But it just so happens that tribalism is real, and in this case, deeply pernicious. Should anyone, from Greenwald to an anonymous liberal commenter in a comment section, make an intellectual case against Barack Obama, he or she will inevitably be dismissed as a “troll.” For if one is not for your guy, he is for the other guy. No matter the issue or intellectual ground upon which one stands.
The silence in the left’s discourse is, meanwhile, deafening. As I scan a variety of blogs, all I see are confirmations of the right’s evil nature: I see stories of Santorum’s crazyness, and stories of CPAC’s meeting, and stories of Romney’s troubles on the trail, and even stories of Tim Tebow’s virtual appearance in state houses; but I don’t see anything about the drone war. What’s most sad is what’s coming, though. As soon as a Republican re-gains the White House, many of these same blogs – TPM, Steve Benen, Washington Monthly, etc. – will overload with tales of Republican militarism, violations of minority rights, and violence abroad directed at innocent civilians. But by then it will already be too late; indeed, it already is too late: the Defense State has bi-partisan approval, and there’s no turning back.
