Comments Elsewhere

“actually it seems like you’re both fucking republicans”

Then you ought to expand your political horizons. I’d point out that lots of people on the Left have ripped into Clinton over his 8 years of dirty little wars around the world (as, in fact, they have), and start naming some names, but the problem is this would only pander to the idea that team-loyalty rather than truth is the appropriate criterion for judging a policy.

Democrat bombs kill people just as surely as Republican bombs do. They killed tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands all told, in Somalia, Haiti, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Sudan, among others. If you want to give some kind of argument that his belligerence toward the Third World was justified (I don’t think that it was, any more than I think Mr. Bush’s is), you’re free to do so. But then you’d better give an argument that either (a) gives principled reasons to support Clinton’s policy while condemning Bush’s, or (b) give up and support Bush’s war policy too. I don’t think there’s any good argument on offer, but you might give one and persuade me. But it will take just that—an argument. Not calling your opponents names.