Glenn Greenwald: The New Republic syndrome

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Glenn Greenwald: The New Republic syndrome

The number one problem facing the Democratic Party is that, as events of the last week demonstrate, it continues to be plagued by The New Republic Syndrome, one of the most fatal political afflictions that exist. In 2002 and 2003, The New Republic was one of the leading crusaders for an attack on Iraq, railing against what it called "the intellectual incoherence of the liberal war critics." In a February 2003 Editorial, they decreed that "the United States must disarm Iraq by force" and declared war opponents guilty of "abject pacifism."

TNR's Jonathan Chait appeared at events with Ken Pollack in 2002 to advocate the so-called "liberal case for war." On March 10, 2003, Chait appeared on Hardball, said the imminent attack was a "just war," and proclaimed: "I don't think you can argue that a regime change in Iraq won't demonstrably and almost immediately improve the living conditions of the Iraqi people." Peter Beinart was the media's designated Democrat to rail against weak, subversive liberals who refused to accept the imperatives of the Bush administration's case for war...

In 2006, TNR's Chait denounced those who were trying to defeat Lieberman in the Democratic primary as "a pack of crazed, ignorant ideological cannibals" -- "exactly the sorts of fanatics who tore the party apart in the late 1960s and early 1970s." But just a few weeks ago, Chait himself expressed shock that "there's hardly any sense in which Lieberman is an independent figure" and is now nothing more than "a cog in the Republican message machine" -- exactly the basis for the primary challenged mounted by the people whom Chait was villifying as left-wing screeching radicals, and exactly the basis for the derision directed at TNR when they said in 2004 that their mission in life was to have Democrats be guided by Joe Lieberman's political principles.

By any metric, that is a humiliating track record. More importantly, it's a perfect museum exhibit to illustrate how the Democratic Party failed completely to provide any meaningful opposition to the extremism, excesses and abuses of the Bush years, instead enabling and endorsing those abuses when they weren't standing by meekly and quietly allowing it all to take root. Throughout the Bush era, the Democratic Party has been dominated by The New Republic Syndrome -- Democrats who are either petrified of meaningfully opposing the right-wing agenda that has dominated our country or who support virtually all of it, while eagerly volunteering to serve as the most vocal demonizers of those who want our country to have a real opposition party...