If Abraham Lincoln were president today, there’s a good chance that the doors would be shut at the New York Times and CBS, and Michael Moore, Terry McCauliffe, Ted Kennedy, Howard Dean, and even John Kerry would be rotting in jail. I’m not saying that would be a good thing. I’m just saying that the line between what is and is not treason in the U.S. has moved a considerable distance in the last 200 years. Tom Hayden has a recent article in which he outlines how to organize an effort to ensure that the United States loses the war in Iraq. Michael Moore has compared the jihadists to the Minute Men and has predicted their victory in Iraq.
David Horowitz, the former editor of Ramparts, now an agressive conservative, has been demonized as a racist, fascist, sell-out, but I have always found him to be not only a very good writer, but someone who consistently backs up his well-reasoned arguments with fact, and who readily and graciously concedes to liberal opponents when they are right. In a speech at Georgetown University, Horowitz lays out his indictment of the “‘unholy alliance’ between radical Islam and the American left”. Here is a quote from that speech:
Before proceeding further, there are certain issues I need to discuss that float beneath the surface of our political conversation and are rarely directly addressed, thus having a powerful effect. I am speaking of the issues embedded in terms like “patriotism,” and “treason,” as well as the matter of what constitutes legitimate criticism of American foreign policy, particularly in a time of war.
To listen to the left, you would think that conservatives are just waiting to charge anyone who criticizes the President’s war policy with borderline treason and worse. Liberal complaints would lead one to suspect that John Ashcroft’s agents can’t wait for an opportunity to indict any leftist who steps verbally out of line. Let’s introduce a grain of reality here. In the first place, if the charge of “treason” is really an issue, Democrats are clearly the preemptive aggressors. Al Gore has already called the President a traitor, while President Bush hasn’t even mentioned Gore’s name. So far, the Democrats’ attacks on Bush are that he lied to the American people and misled them into war; and that he is sacrificing American youth to line the pockets of his cronies at Halliburton. These are accusations of treason. And there is almost nobody on the left, high or low, who hasn’t made them in some fashion or another.
The whole speech is worth reading. It is a very clear analysis of what is and is not legitimate criticism of the government in a time of war.