We don’t know yet who will carry the flag into 2016 for the Republican Party, but we know now what one of his or her main themes ought to be: the bizarre reaction of President Obama and Democrats to the slaughter in Paris.
Two weekends ago, three million people marched in the streets in a show of defiance, led by the political leaders of many world powers. Leading the West by default was Angela Merkel, German chancellor of the country that in last century was France’s worst enemy. Leading from behind was Obama, so far behind he was somewhere in Washington, enjoying a nice, restful weekend at home.
Never fear — the country which counts France as its oldest ally, which saved France from Nazis and then devastation and the grip of the Soviet Union, did not fail to step up with heart-warming gestures of moral support and encouragement. On Friday, John Kerry (the new JFK; the old one was spinning) arrived in the capital with 70’s rock star and pothead James Taylor, who ground out the ballad, “You’ve Got a Friend.” That will show them, those déclassé and outré head-hacking barbarians!
“Lafayette, we are here,” this was not.
Hillary Clinton, of Benghazi distinction and Kerry’s forerunner as the country’s first diplomat, had nothing to say to this astonishing act of diplomacy. But she should be made to say something — to criticize or defend or to say what she would do differently — each day that she is a candidate, from the day she starts till the end.
Democrats once took pride in their reputation as soldiers of freedom’s survival, but that was a long time ago. Something has since shattered inside them, and they lost interest in soldiers (too violent), in freedom (too politically incorrect, and too “hurtful” to some), and at last in survival itself. Survival meant you had to see and name evil, to make the decision to use force against it, and render it helpless by power or will. This was too much (and it made you too evil), so the decision was taken to pretend that it never existed at all.
Examples of this include the many excuses made on behalf of America’s enemies, the many exaggerations made of the faults of this country (who are we, after all, to call anyone evil?) and efforts to say that the people and things that we thought of as evil weren’t really that bad after all.
Why was Willie Horton — the thug who stabbed a 17-year-old boy so many times there was almost no blood in his body — so bad that he shouldn’t be given an unsupervised furlough? Those who opposed this were not progressive, and those who complained when he used a furlough to beat and rape people were probably racist as well.
In 1988, Michael Dukakis began to lose the election over his support of such furloughs, and lost it for good after that when, in response to a question from CNN’s Bernard Shaw, he refused to say he would press for the death penalty in the hypothetical case of a criminal who had raped and murdered his wife.
To this day, Democrats believe it was the question that was shocking and outrageous, and the answer that was the one of a civilized person. Kerry was Dukakis’ first lieutenant governor. His spirit lives on in his party today.
Noemie Emery, a Washington Examiner columnist, is a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard and author of “Great Expectations: The Troubled Lives of Political Families.”
