On the other hand, there is almost an extravagance in the condemnation of Bush as being a danger to the way of life of Americans, threatening the constitutional system and so on. So that to an outside reader coming and looking at these two ledgers, if you will, it clearly seems that the speaker is much more worried or considers Bush to be a much more clear and pressing danger to the values that they hold dear than, say, a Saddam or a bin Laden. And that's my point about the indignation gap. There is genuine indignation that's directed toward, you could say, the enemy at home -- which is Bush on the right -- and there's almost perfunctory condemnation of the enemy abroad, usually as a way as making a concession and then turning around and attacking the enemy at home.
But in your book, you give real examples of what people have said about the president, and they are clearly harsh condemnations, but the "ritual condemnation" you give, the "I am no fan of Osama bin Laden" or, "We can agree that bin Laden is not a very nice guy," I did Google searches on those. You are the only one who's used those words.
Right, and I concede that those words are my words, my paraphrase. I didn't claim to be quoting anybody.
They're in quotes.
Right, but they're in my quotes. In other words, I didn't say that Ted Kennedy said them. They're in my quotes. In other words, you'll see that in the book from time to time, in the penultimate -- not the penultimate, but in the chapter that's called "The War Against the War," at the end of it I say, bin Laden seems to be signaling to the American left, and what he seems to be saying is the following: quotes, and then I have two paragraphs. Now, it's very obvious from the context that those are my words, bin Laden didn't say them, but I'm conveying, in paraphrase, the so-called content of the truth that I see bin Laden offering.
But if this indignation gap is so real, how come you couldn't find a single example?
Well, because the indignation gap exists. The indignation gap is essentially a gap of shrill denunciation at Bush and no shrill denunciations of bin Laden and Saddam that are comparable in volume and temperature. So on the one hand you have a presence, and on the other you have an absence.
Now, I don't deny that there are the condemnations, and that's why I'm making a point that can only be seen in context. Obviously, you can find a line where someone goes, "Saddam was evil." I'm not denying that. I'm simply saying that you won't find anything approaching the number of lines saying that Bush is evil.
How should conservatives fight "The Enemy at Home"?
Well, part of it, I think, is conservatives currently are in two camps. One camp is the camp that says that the liberal is simply deluded, doesn't realize that the radical Muslims are very illiberal, doesn't realize that bin Laden doesn't really like Hillary Clinton or Barney Frank or Nancy Pelosi, so if only we give these liberals a wake-up call and show them how illiberal these Muslims are, the liberal will jump out of his seat, jump on the bandwagon, jump on the war on terror. Now, this approach has produced, as far as I can tell, not a single convert, even though it's relentlessly pounded in the conservative literature.
The other approach, which is sort of the David Horowitz approach, is, "Liberals hate America! Liberals are basically aligned with the totalitarian movements of the past, like socialism, communism. This is the same old blame America, hate America crowd!" And what I'm saying is that both these lines of analysis are mistaken.
Unlike some conservatives, I don't accuse liberals of hating America or treason or wanting to destroy America or being totalitarians. No, I say that liberals are loyal to liberal values, and liberals like liberal America. Liberals are often accused of being anti-America when what they are against is traditional values. They're not against America; they're just against Bush's America.
So in a sense what I'm trying to do is say that conservatives should hold the left accountable and should point out that the left, in order to pursue its own political objectives, is endangering American security and stability in the Middle East, because I think that there are a lot of people on the left who are essentially acting in reckless disregard of what would happen in Iraq if America pulled out. They don't care! They basically want to see Bush humiliated. They basically want to take national security, which has been a winning issue for the Republicans, and put it as a millstone around Bush's neck, and it's quite clear they could care less what happens in Iraq afterward.
In fact, they even say it. There's a sort of blithe indifference: It's bad now, who cares what happens afterward, how much worse could it get? Well, it could get an awfully lot worse, because the radical Muslims make it pretty clear that if they can get Iraq on top of Iran, they're next going to target Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
About the writer
Alex Koppelman is a staff writer for Salon.
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