WHY ARE WE IN VIETNAM?-- uh, I MEAN IRAQ?

The central characteristic of sixties liberalism (at least in the remembered national indictment) was one of moral superiority. A liberal would chat you up on civil rights, Vietnam and soybean recipes in a manner aimed less at honest proselytizing and (judged by exasperate liberal segues like The point you can’t seem to understand is… ) more at sending one away with a new sense of self as a racist, warmongering junk food addict. The common people didn’t respond well to such labels...

Liberalism, here, is not to be mixed up with Classical Liberalism, that nineteenth-century philosophy that stressed the dignity of the individual, and scolded, in the process, the depredations of state control. We examine, instead, the liberalism perceived by a working-class population (still smarting from those unkind cracks about racism and soybeans and all) as the value-system of federal buttinskies, idealism and day-glo peace signs...

So, even as Nixon and his posse were run out of town, the people discovered that they hated "the liberals," more than they hated conservatives, who, at morning’s first whiff of such lagniappe, poked their heads, prairie-dog style from the foxholes, rolled their eyes skyward and gave tearful thanks to the gods of authoritarianism...

"Liberals…," archbully Rush Limbaugh was heard to say on the radio some years ago. Here Rush stalled, vexed clearly at putting essential words to existential evil. "Liberals," he finally allowed, "are against humanity." The l-incantation was pixie dust; it could make folks forget that Rush was a mean, ignorant son-of-a-bitch who, to give the measure of the man, once ridiculed a thirteen-year-old Chelsea Clinton for her then-awkward looks, labeling her as the White House dog, and leaving those who could still think to wonder why a grown man would viciously attack a thirteen-year-old girl in public. But Rush hated liberals, didn’t he, so he couldn’t have been all bad. The nation had a mean streak and right-wing hate radio was bringing it to the surface. Michael Nolan

-flynn