Mr. Marshall needs to remove the word ‘progressive’ from the name of the institute he heads. Unlike many people on the left, I like the word ‘progressive’ better than the word ‘liberal’. Liberal doesn’t mean anything anymore. But progressive is self-explanatory. We believe in making progress. There are things we wish to conserve, like our constitutional right to privacy. But we are fundamentally concerned with making improvements in the human condition, both here at home and across the world.
I don’t normally quote Jesus, but Mr. Marshall needs to hear it. If I dwell obsessively on U.S. misdeeds, there is a reason:
You hypocrite, remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye. -Matthew 7:4-5
How can I tell Iraqis not to mistreat prisoners when Donald Rumsfeld has not been fired? How can I condemn the killing of innocent people when no one in any authority has been held responsible for over 20 prisoner fatalities? How can I get vexed about rape rooms when we allowed rape at Abu Ghraib? I am absolutely appalled by the tactics, brutality, and indiscriminate nature of the Iraqi insurgency. I condemn the bombing of civilians and the public beheading of people in the strongest possible terms. But I don’t have a vote in Iraq. I have a vote here. And until we are willing to remove the wooden beam that is the Bush administration, I cannot in good conscience obsess over the splinter that is the insurgency.
It is a gross misunderstanding of the goals of progressivism to consider my stance un-American or to say it lacks credibility. Since when is taking Jesus’s advice to avoid hypocrisy lacking in credibility?
