Latest Bush Administration Outrage: Double Standards

Joe Klein can’t believe that the editors of the Los Angeles Times would allow someone as “overwhelmingly limited” as Jamie Kirchick to criticize Barack Obama in their pages. In particular, Kirchick’s limitation seems to be a failure to grasp the moral imperative that all nations be treated equally:

…much of the rest of the world came to see American exceptionalism as a belief that we can make our own rules, make exceptions, as it were. We could unilaterally decide to make war in Iraq, withdraw from the global warming negotiations, allow India and Israel to abide by one set of rules when it came to nuclear proliferation and Iran to another.

Imagine that: one set of rules for democratic allies like India and Israel and another set of rules for the authoritarian, repressive, revolutionary regime in Tehran. I’m surprised Klein didn’t single out the outrageous double standard the United States has applied in Korea. By Klein’s logic, why should the North be subjected to sanctions and intimidation from the imperialist swine in Washington while the South receives direct military support?

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