Roger Cohen’s Exceptional Ignorance

I haven’t read much of the New York Times before, partly because there’s only so many things one can read in a day, and partly because I’ve been under the impression that it’s heavily biased towards a liberal/socialistic viewpoint of the world. Today I happened to be on the NY Time reading an article about skateboard shoes when I noticed Roger Cohen’s op-ed about Palin and American exceptionalism. I’d like to say I found something different from what I would have expected on the NY Times site, but instead it was exactly what I would expect.

My first reaction upon reading Cohen’s opinion is “Do people really get paid for writing stuff like this?” Where’s the logic? Where’s the reason? Where’s the informed viewpoint? I know it’s an opinion article so it’s fine for it to be biased, but there’s a difference between bias and ignorance. Cohen makes a number of claims that show he’s either woefully uninformed, or just pushing the standard liberal script. Among his observations are:

1. Palin has little or no foreign policy experience. Liberals seems eager to point this out while ignoring that their own Presidential candidate also has virtually no foreign policy experience. If you disagree, let me know what foreign policy experience Obama has that Palin doesn’t.

2. “Behind Palinism lies anger.” Cohen is at least partially correct here, although his intent seems to be to further characterize conservatives as the “bitter clingers” Obama spoke of. Truthfully, I am a bit angry. I’m angry about being punished when I succeed. I’m angry about feeling like I don’t have a voice, that nobody in the government represents or listens to me. I’m angry when, at a 2-1 ratio, people believe our current financial crisis was caused by Republicans, when in fact most of the people on Wall Street are Democrats and it is Democrat politicians that enacted and supported the policies that resulted in the current situation.

3. “But, let’s face it, from Baghdad to Bear Stearns the last eight years have been a lesson in the price of exceptionalism run amok.” Hmmm, exceptionalism run amok, eh? How about liberalism run amok? Tell me what conservative policies led to the current situation.

4. Connected vs. closed. Cohen seems to imply that liberals are in favor of a “connected” world and conservatives want to hole up. Oh the contrary, it’s liberal policies that form the basis of protectionism, and conservative ideals that believe in being connected, albeit in a responsible way. Free trade? That’s a conservative policy, last time I checked. Isn’t it liberals who are always complaining about the ills of globalization?

5. Energy. Cohen negatively refers to “a huge transfer of resources to the Middle East, and the imperative to develop new sources of energy.” Let’s see…now who is it that has been against domestic oil production for the past 30 years, which resulted in this huge transfer of resources and wealth to the Middle East? Who is against nuclear power? Who is against clean coal technology? Who is against developing oil shale deposits? Liberals, not conservatives. Democrats, not Republicans. As Cohen says, “Enough is enough” and I’ll agree with him on that emphatic statement. I’ve had enough of Nancy Pelosi’s 100% politically minded leadership that says one thing to the public but then does nothing to solve real problems.

6. Learning from others. Cohen states that Obama is a candidate “who believes America may have something to learn from other countries (like universal health care)”. Has Obama learned that universal health care isn’t working out so well in other countries? This country certainly has problems with regards to health care, but is universal health care the solution? If that’s what Obama is learning from other countries, maybe he’s got a learning disorder.

7. Ignoring the past, looking to the future. Perhaps worst of all, Cohen advocates an approach of looking to the future instead of the past when he says “If I were Obama, I’d put it this way: ‘Senator McCain, the world you claim to understand is the world of yesterday. A new century demands new thinking. Our country cannot be made fundamentally secure by a man who thought our economy was fundamentally sound.’”

Perhaps this is why Obama’s foreign policy bears resemblance to that of the French government during WWII. Perhaps this is why Obama was against the surge that McCain pushed and which has exceeded anyone’s expectations. Perhaps it’s Obama’s ignorance of history that causes him to promote policies that were tried in the Soviet Union for 70 years and resulted in widespread misery and the ultimate collapse of that country. Remember that statement, oft-quoted by frustrated high-school history teachers, that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it? And yet Cohen advocates ignoring centuries of historical evidence that show the flaws in Obama’s policies.

If America has not been exceptional it is because of liberal policies, not conservative ones. Liberal policies have weakened the country economically and socially, created enemies, and weakened alliances. Would Russia have attacked Georgia if the US were adhering to conservative principals of strength and military pre-eminence instead of pacification? Would the terrorists and insurgents have had so much success in Iraq if the US had been 100% behind the military effort and committed to success in Iraq instead of liberal politicians constantly declaring that the war was lost, that the US military was composed of baby-killers, and that the US should pull out? In doing so, liberal politicians like Harry Reid contributed not so indirectly to untold deaths of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians.

What Cohen doesn’t grasp is that the American exceptionalism conservatives want is not an attitude, but a reality. We don’t care what others think of the country, we care about whether the country really is the strongest and the best, regardless of whether anyone else thinks so. If they think so that’s great, but what they think of us should be the last priority, not the first.

Ultimately, what Cohen is most ignorant of is where the illogical rage in this country lies. Where do you see people yelling and screaming? Where do you see angry people? Is it not in the faces of the war protesters, the words of the liberal bloggers, and the op-ed journalists of liberal publications like the NY Times? Conservatives are angry for a reason, but it is a measured anger focused on solving problems. Liberals are angry without knowing exactly why other than that they’ve been told to be angry, and their rage is fueling a campaign that claims “change” as it’s goal, although if you ask a liberal exactly what that change will be you’ll find just one thing–ignorance.