Why The Left Is Doomed

Cinnamon Stillwell, a charming writer from the San Francisco Bay Area, writes a column that explains how 9/11 transformed her from a Nader voter in 2000 to a Bush backer in 2004. The things she has experienced since her conversion show why the Left is unfit for power in this country. Her observations show why the president was reelected in November.

But more than anything, it was the left's hypocrisy when it came to the war on terrorism that made me turn rightward after 9/11. I remember, back in my liberal days, being fiercely opposed to the Taliban and its brutal treatment of women. Even then, I felt that Afghanistan should immediately be liberated, as Malcolm X once said in another context, by any means necessary. But when it came time, it turned out that the left was mostly opposed to such liberation, whether of the Afghan people or of the Iraqis (especially if America and a Republican president were at the helm).

Indeed, liberals had become strangely conservative in their fierce attachment to the status quo. In contrast, the much-maligned neoconservatives (among whose ranks I count myself) and Bush had become the "radicals," bringing freedom and democracy to the despotic Middle East. Is it any wonder that in such a topsy-turvy world, I found myself in agreement with those I'd formerly denounced?

Is it any wonder that we may see a long period of Republican dominance in Washington?