July 08, 2003

The Left’s Position on Liberia has Boomeranged and Helped Bush

The brilliance of the Bush move into Liberia may not yet have been fully appreciated.

The Left was saying Bush was hypocritical to point proudly to the humanitarian results of freeing the Iraqi people. Why hypocritical? Because he was ignoring great humanitarian suffering in Liberia, of course. Here’s an example of this roundabout argument, from Arianna Huffington, printed on July 2. It’s a perfect example of the Left’s position on the subject:

Atrocities in Africa Not on Bush’s Radar

by Arianna Huffington

With Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction as difficult to find as Hussein himself, President Bush’s Iraq talking points now center on the humanitarian upside of having ousted the Butcher of Baghdad. His speeches are liberally peppered with mentions of “mass graves” and “torture chambers” and encomiums to “freeing the people of Iraq.” He has all but doused himself in the sweet-smelling scent of human rights and put on an Amnesty International T-shirt.

If we buy his new argument that ending humanitarian crises through military force is good foreign policy, then how can he justify embarking on his first trip to sub-Saharan Africa next week without including on his itinerary Congo and Liberia?

Notice that Arianna didn’t want Bush to actually go into Liberia? She says, “If we buy his new argument”. She’s nothing but skeptical of the notion of actually doing it. She doesn’t care about Liberia. She wants to slam Bush for not going into Liberia, and still reserve the right to slam him again if he does it.

The Left thought they had Bush in a dilemma – they figured he was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t.

As the Left picked up this argument and trumpeted it around, Bush said, “Well, why not go into Liberia and help those people out?”

Now the Left is stuck – unable to say: “Wait a minute – we didn’t want you to actually do it!” Meanwhile praise is rolling in from all directions for Bush’s humanitarian actions:

Even liberals have credited Mr. Bush with doing more than his predecessor to help Africa. In May, Live Aid founder Bob Geldof said Mr. Bush is far more committed than Mr. Clinton to fighting AIDS and famine on the continent.

“Clinton talked the talk and did diddly squat, whereas Bush doesn’t talk but does deliver,” said Mr. Geldof, an Irish musician and activist who in 1985 staged the world’s largest rock concert to combat starvation in Africa.

It’s precisely because the arguments of the Left are so screwy, that they can boomerang like this. What a roundabout argument: “Bush was wrong to help people in Iraq, for the reason that he’s not helping people in Liberia!” So ridiculous.