Larry Wilkerson's Unending Diatribe
After months of waiting, we finally get a glimpse of what a Democratic agenda looks like in
Larry Wilkerson's Baltimore Sun op-ed.
Mr. Wilkerson's ego aside, he'd be wise to learn history. I'm sure that Lynne Cheney could help with that.
Seriously, notice the denial of American exceptionalism in that brief paragraph. When he says that "We came as much from the Magna Carta as from our own doings", he's saying that we came from European greatness as much as from our persistence. That's nonsense. It's a statement filled with dismissiveness. After declaring independance, we fought hard and persisted in a war that at times seemed unwinnable. That's America at its best. Nothing in Europe's history comes close to it.
Wilkerson also hates Don Rumsfeld, calling him a tyrant and martinet. This isn't a new revelation since Wilkerson included Rumsfeld in his "hijacking" diatribe. Though he doesn't give examples of Rumsfeld's flaws, Wilkerson still expects us to simply trust his appraisal. No thanks. I'll trust people that cite specific examples supporting their accusations.
At this point, Wilkerson is all diatribe and devoid of facts, hardly the persuasive type.
Finally, Wilkerson trots out the tired liberal line about cherry-picking the intelligence. Report after report has shown that accusation baseless, whether it was the Robb-Silvermann report or the 9/11 Commission's report or the Senate Intelligence Committee report. It's worth noting that the Senate Intel Committee report passed unanimously.
Wilkerson's biggest diatribes come from things he's gotten wrong, from the NSA intercept program's legality to the cherry-picking of intelligence to the accusations against Rumsfeld.
It's safe to say that Wilkerson is a hate-filled bitter man who thinks that his way is the only way. Thankfully, he isn't part of this administration anymore.
Cross-posted at California Conservative
Posted Sunday, April 23, 2006 3:25 PM
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As Alexis de Tocqueville once said: "America is great because she is good. If America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great."Mr. Wilkerson, it seems, hates George Bush. He's hated him from the start, too. This explains his first infamous statement that Dick Cheney had "hijacked foreign policy", supposedly from omniscient bureaucrats like Mr. Wilkerson and other State Department peons. Mr. Wilkerson's seething hatred is only surpassed by his superiority complex, which appears to dominate his thinking.
In January 2001, with the inauguration of George W. Bush as president, America set on a path to cease being good; America became a revolutionary nation, a radical republic. If our country continues on this path, it will cease to be great, as happened to all great powers before it, without exception.
Mr. Wilkerson's ego aside, he'd be wise to learn history. I'm sure that Lynne Cheney could help with that.
We Americans came not from a revolution but from an evolution. That is in large part why our so-called revolution produced success while most throughout history did not. We came as much from the Magna Carta as from our own doings, as much from British common law and parliamentary development as from the Declaration of Independence and Continental Congress.Silly me. I thought we fought the British in the Revolutionary War. That must've been a persistent typo in the history books of my youth. It should've been the Evolutionary War. Let's hope they've corrected that so future generations will know better.
Seriously, notice the denial of American exceptionalism in that brief paragraph. When he says that "We came as much from the Magna Carta as from our own doings", he's saying that we came from European greatness as much as from our persistence. That's nonsense. It's a statement filled with dismissiveness. After declaring independance, we fought hard and persisted in a war that at times seemed unwinnable. That's America at its best. Nothing in Europe's history comes close to it.
From the Kyoto accords to the International Criminal Court, from torture and cruel and unusual treatment of prisoners to rendition of innocent civilians, from illegal domestic surveillance to lies about leaking , from energy ineptitude to denial of global warming, from cherry-picking intelligence to appointing a martinet and a tyrant to run the Defense Department , the Bush administration, in the name of fighting terrorism, has put America on the radical path to ruin.Mr. Wilkerson has it wrong again about the "illegal domestic surveillance..." Here's what five FISA court judges testified to at a Senate Judiciary hearing:
"If a court refuses a FISA application and there is not sufficient time for the president to go to the court of review, the president can under executive order act unilaterally, which he is doing now," said Judge Allan Kornblum, magistrate judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida and an author of the 1978 FISA Act. "I think that the president would be remiss exercising his constitutional authority by giving all of that power over to a statute."In short, they didn't think he'd crossed the line legally. That isn't coming from an academic either. It's coming from the man who authored the FISA law. In light of that information, it seems that Mr. Wilkerson's diatribe is based solely on Bush hatred, not on the law. He's entitled to do so but he's still wrong on the law. Perhaps Mr. Roberts could give him private lessons on the law so he gets it right.
Wilkerson also hates Don Rumsfeld, calling him a tyrant and martinet. This isn't a new revelation since Wilkerson included Rumsfeld in his "hijacking" diatribe. Though he doesn't give examples of Rumsfeld's flaws, Wilkerson still expects us to simply trust his appraisal. No thanks. I'll trust people that cite specific examples supporting their accusations.
At this point, Wilkerson is all diatribe and devoid of facts, hardly the persuasive type.
Finally, Wilkerson trots out the tired liberal line about cherry-picking the intelligence. Report after report has shown that accusation baseless, whether it was the Robb-Silvermann report or the 9/11 Commission's report or the Senate Intelligence Committee report. It's worth noting that the Senate Intel Committee report passed unanimously.
Wilkerson's biggest diatribes come from things he's gotten wrong, from the NSA intercept program's legality to the cherry-picking of intelligence to the accusations against Rumsfeld.
It's safe to say that Wilkerson is a hate-filled bitter man who thinks that his way is the only way. Thankfully, he isn't part of this administration anymore.
Cross-posted at California Conservative
Posted Sunday, April 23, 2006 3:25 PM
No comments.
