Mahablog: This is Why

I hope somebody sends a clip of today's Paul Krugman column to Peter Beinart.

You may remember that Beinart is the New Republic editor who thinks Democrats need to become hawks to win back American voters. Beinart wrote last December,

Today, three years after September 11 brought the United States face-to-face with a new totalitarian threat, liberalism has still not "been fundamentally reshaped" by the experience. On the right, a "historical re-education" has indeed occurred--replacing the isolationism of the Gingrich Congress with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney's near-theological faith in the transformative capacity of U.S. military might. But American liberalism, as defined by its activist organizations, remains largely what it was in the 1990s--a collection of domestic interests and concerns. On health care, gay rights, and the environment, there is a positive vision, articulated with passion. But there is little liberal passion to win the struggle against Al Qaeda--even though totalitarian Islam has killed thousands of Americans and aims to kill millions; and even though, if it gained power, its efforts to force every aspect of life into conformity with a barbaric interpretation of Islam would reign terror upon women, religious minorities, and anyone in the Muslim world with a thirst for modernity or freedom.

Beinart reached back to the liberal establishment of the late 1940s, which he says was divided between the "hards" who favored aggressively anti-communist policies, and the "softs" who were less interested in the struggle against communism than in the preservation of rights and progressive policies at home.