Comments Elsewhere

‘One of the things that Leiter likes to say is that Democrats are really pro-war because they only oppose the war on “strategic grounds (See number 3).” But I don’t know what this means. I think that “opposing only on strategic grounds” means that Democrats only oppose the war because “it won’t achieve the proposed objectives.” But seems like a perfectly valid reason to oppose a war.’

Correct me if I’m wrong, but you seem to be contrasting two reasons for opposing a policy: (1) because it’s unlikely to achieve the proposed ends (i.e., it’s foolish) or (2) because the proposed ends are themselves not worth achieving, at least not through the means proposed (i.e., it’s evil). And you seem further to suggest that Leiter is trashing the mandarins of the Democratic Party because they oppose the war only on grounds of type (1) rather than grounds of type (2).

But if that’s the right interpretation of what you’re saying, it seems like a wilfull misreading of Leiter’s point. When politicians are criticized for opposing policy X “only on strategic grounds,” this does not — as far as I can tell — typically mean that they’re being criticized for calling something impractical when it’s actually evil. The typical complaint is that their reasons for opposing a policy relate only to their own political career (here, as a matter of electioneering) rather than principled opposition to the policy (of either type (1) or type (2)). That certainly seems like the most plausible and charitable interpretation of what Leiter’s on about in the post that you link to.

Now, maybe Leiter is right about this and maybe he’s not. Maybe you’re right about the proper grounds to oppose the war being of type (1) rather than type (2) and maybe you’re not. But I don’t see that you and Leiter have so much as reached a disagreement yet on these points, since it doesn’t seem to me that your objections are responsive to the point he was making in the first place.