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“The Party of McGovern Is Back”–Good!

Anyone who expects to get anywhere within the Democratic Party will now have to give the antiwar wing its due. The party of George McGovern is back. ~Brendan Miniter I know this crack about Democrats being like McGovern is considered an insult in Republican circles, not very far above, “You throw like a girl!” in its intended […]

Anyone who expects to get anywhere within the Democratic Party will now have to give the antiwar wing its due. The party of George McGovern is back. ~Brendan Miniter

I know this crack about Democrats being like McGovern is considered an insult in Republican circles, not very far above, “You throw like a girl!” in its intended meaning.  DLC people live and breathe the fear that somewhere someone is comparing them to George McGovern.  “But I supported the bombing of Andorra!” they’ll complain, proving their bellicose bona fides

I know this about that crack in part because I grew up thinking that George McGovern was an example of Democratic unseriousness in foreign policy.  On the whole, Sen. McGovern was pilloried then and excoriated today because he represented an old patriotic vision that saw no American interest (or American values, for that matter) in scorching countries on the other side of the world to no particular purpose except, perhaps, to preserve our international “credibility.”  I won’t pretend that I share all of the man’s politics, but his opposition to Vietnam–what the far better conservative from Canada, George Grant, called an example of American imperialism–stands him in good stead and connects him to an honourable patriotic tradition.  Goodness knows what tradition The Wall Street Journal belongs to, but it aint got much to do with patriotism, that’s for sure.  I also won’t pretend that the 1972 Democratic Party was exactly overflowing with this sort of old-line Plains patriotism, but if you’re going to mock the Democrats of ’72 because of McGovern you had best judge McGovern on his merits and not on the dubious company he kept in that party.

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