Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Defending One's Own

Jonah Goldberg over at "The Corner" in National Review Online makes a very important point about the guessing/wishing game that was played before we knew who actually placed the bomb in Times Square. Far too many liberals publicly expressed their hope that the undeniable terrorist would turn out to be "homegrown", while some conservatives no doubt hoped for just the opposite. Prejudices such as these, as Goldberg points out, do great harm to the effort to discover the real culprit and, as the real culprit was bent on accomplishing mass murder, this can be dangerous.

All well and good. But there remains a crucial difference between these two reactions. Confronted with an embarrassment, not to mention a crime, it is altogether natural, understandable, and even forgivable that before the facts are known, one sincerely hope it not involve any of one's own. Not one's family, not one's friends, not one's countrymen. But to wish for the opposite is by comparison, unnatural, sick, and ultimately suicidal.

The liberal reflexes in the war on terror are not just wrong, they're malignant.

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