"Progressive"

I don't think it makes a ton of to try to evaluate presidential candidates in terms of how often they describe themselves as "progressive". On the right, the term "conservative" has a pretty clear valence -- if Candidate A is more conservative than Candidate B, then Candidate B is more moderate than Candidate A. "Progressive" is, among left of center people, a much more mixed bag of a term. Some people would use it to mean something like "John Edwards' domestic policy is more progressive than Barack Obama's," meaning that its more ambitious, less respectful of elite CW about balanced budgets, etc.

On the other hand, when the DLC wanted to start a think tank they called it the Progressive Policy Institute. "Progressive" in this sense is meant to denote a Third Way approach and provide a contrast with the traditional "liberal" orientation of the Old Democrats or the "socialist" orientation of Old Labour.

Comments

I hate the term 'progressive'… it just plays into conservative campaign to make ‘liberal’ some kind of dirty word.

Posted by RC | July 10, 2007 10:15 AM

Of course for maybe 35>45 percent of the electorate "progressive" means "commie-pinko rat-bastard, Marxist, faggot loving, tree hugging traitor".

Posted by steve duncan | July 10, 2007 10:17 AM

I don't think it makes a ton of to try to evaluate presidential candidates in terms of how often they describe themselves as "progressive".

I don't either.

There's a George Orwell essay that describes how the word "fascism" had become so degraded linguistically that it was no longer anything more than a synonym for "undesirable." I think "progressive" and "liberal" and "populist" have achieved a similar status--all of which are now used interchangeably to mean "deviating slightly from neoconservative-corporate policy."

Posted by James Gary | July 10, 2007 10:21 AM

The "progressive" in PPI should not be taken at face value. I don't see anything in themission statement that relates to the historical definition of "progressive"

Posted by ChrisB | July 10, 2007 10:25 AM

The "progressive" in PPI should not be taken at face value. I don't see anything in themission statement that relates to the historical definition of "progressive"

Posted by ChrisB | July 10, 2007 10:25 AM

I agree with Matt on the term "progressive" and prefer the term with more ideological content: liberal.

But I have a question for ChrisB, what is the historical definition of "progressive"? PPI's guiding vision of "government as society's servant, not its master" appears to me to be aligned with progressivism as envisioned by the Roosevelts. Third Way opposition to Old Democrats (interest groups) and Old Labor (labor bosses and political machines) are of a piece with historical progressivism.

I disagree with many of PPI's positions, and I think the Third Way is misguided, but near as I can tell they have a pretty solid historical claim to the term "progressive".

Posted by tib | July 10, 2007 10:49 AM

People call themselves progressives because they don't want to call themselves liberals. Well, I'm a liberal, so the hell with them.

Posted by Gary Sugar | July 10, 2007 10:56 AM

I agree with Matt on the term "progressive" and prefer the term with more ideological content: liberal.

Given that outside the U.S. the word usually is applied to free-market types, I'm really dubious that the word "liberal" has an enormous amount of ideological content.

When I think of "liberal", Joe Klein comes to mind. I wouldn't consider myself one.

Posted by Ed Marshall | July 10, 2007 11:04 AM

Third Way opposition to Old Democrats (interest groups) and Old Labor (labor bosses and political machines) are of a piece with historical progressivism.

"Historical progressivism" would, in my mind, be very very very closely aligned with the class interests of working people, and the economic institutions of working people, or what we commonly refer to as labor unions. As corrupt or venal as the pure business unionism of Gompers and his descendants may, or may not be, progressives historically have fought for workers, not for management.

Thus, the theft of "progressive" as an adjective for a policy group, like the DLC, that represents the interests of corporations and their shareholders is exactly the problem.

Posted by mrs. ibrahim al-jafaari | July 10, 2007 11:11 AM

Personally, I use the term "progressive" more than "liberal" because the latter word has come to mean something completely different to different people, and it's wholly detached from both its historical meaning and what it means elsewhere in the world. It's used to describe everyone from John Stuart Mill to Woodrow Wilson to Harry Truman to Tom Friedman to John Howard to Al Sharpton to Barbara Streisand to Michael Moore.

"Liberal" is still a useful descriptor when it is limited to a certain context ("social liberal") or modifed by some additional term such as "Rawlsian liberal," "liberal hawk," or "liberal internationalist," but by itself the word liberalism is so vague as to be essentially meaningless.

Certainly, some of the DLC types have tried to appropriate the word "progressive" for their own uses, but it has fairly clear historical meaning as a political philosophy of the democratic Left that is oriented toward incremental reforms to advance social justice. The word has some "dirty hippie" connotations in the American mainstream, but those can generally be avoided by bathing and taking a pragmatic approach to political issues.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | July 10, 2007 11:16 AM

these terms do have real meanings

'Progressive' is a term usually used to denote left-wing populist sentiments. They tend to focus on class issues over social ones. For instance, John Edwards really is more progressive than Clinton or Obama, who are both Liberal rather than Progressive. Hence the Progressive movement of the early 20th century.

'Liberal' denotes someone who is more elitist, and tends to favor "free market" policies. They are more concerned with broader human rights (abortion, gay rights, ending slavery that sort of thing) than with rights of workers, and generally do not see class issues as being important.

Posted by soullite | July 10, 2007 11:16 AM

Right wingers have consistently tried to equate liberalism with elitism. This is a meme that liberals need to fight intead of running from.

Also, my impression is that the original Progressive movement of the turn of 20th century actually driven by elites and intellectuals, and that they were distinct from left wing populists like William Jennings Bryan.

Posted by RC | July 10, 2007 11:34 AM

In some ways, the neocons have turned the whole right/left axis on its head. These days you have polical figures like Joe Lieberman and Alan Dershowicz advocating extreme foreign policy positions that place them deep in the fever swamps of conservative America. And yet these guys aren't all that conservative on traditional domestic issues such as poverty and minority rights (obviously Lieberman's voting record on stuff like the bankruptcy bill is not "liberal," but compared to his GOP contemporaries, he's pretty moderate).

And then you have the rare Repub like Chuck Hegel, who sounds "moderate" on foreign policy while espousing class conservatism on every domestic position imaginable. The Bush presidency has transformed neoconservatism from a small but occasionally influential cult into the defining political litmus test of the day. If you are a neocon, you are "conserative" in America today. Everyone else is something else.

Posted by owenz | July 10, 2007 11:40 AM

"Also, my impression is that the original Progressive movement of the turn of 20th century actually driven by elites and intellectuals, and that they were distinct from left wing populists like William Jennings Bryan."

This is about half-right. The Progressive movement drew its intellectual component from the academic elites of the era, but it had a strong base of support in the working class. It was something of an alliance between the labor movement and the educated middle class against both the radical Left and the economic elites.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | July 10, 2007 11:51 AM

owenz is completely confused.

The Progressive is an ant-war lefty monthly magazine. The Progressive era was one of - I think - genuine reform which helped the average person. For instance, China desperately needs a Progressive era. Executing the head of their FDA ministry won't help much.

The DLC and PPI and Third Wayers are centrists.

True liberals in my mind think Capitalism is basically okay, they just want to soften it a little.

I think the conservative members of the Supreme court are moving things in a non-progressive direction. (Note no mention of the word neocon).

In countries which aren't rich, brave "liberals" are often stuck between dictatorships which don't serve the people much at all and relgious extremests whose vision for their countries isn't liberal in the slightest.

In rich countries "liberals" usually complain about anti-liberal dictators like Saddam Hussein getting framed up by neocons because of their - the liberals' - all-consuming partisanship.

Posted by Peter K. | July 10, 2007 11:59 AM

tib,

For historical progressive, I mean the focus of reform the economic system. Workers rights, anti trust laws, education reform, child labor laws, government interventionism, Pro union

DLC and PPI are anti-government interventionism, and anti-union and supporters of big business

"government as society's servant, not its master"
sounds progressive I guess, but the line is really just a running buddy of the "era of big government is over". Who made government society's master? They are bashing LBJ and the democractic majorities of the 80s.

DLC's central goal is to make government safe for business. That's just not a progressive agenda.

There literature sounds progressive at times, just as it sounds conservatives at times because they are taking the better sound bites of different ideas and throwing them together.

Posted by ChrisB | July 10, 2007 12:00 PM

In rich countries "liberals" usually complain about anti-liberal dictators like Saddam Hussein getting framed up by neocons because of their - the liberals' - all-consuming partisanship.

Oh, please spare us the BS. All those people marching against the Iraq War were just trying to help the Democrats win the 2002 midterm elections and support their Democratic leaders like Dick Gephardt and Tom Daschle? Exactly which planet do you live on?

No, many "liberals" opposed the Iraq War because they believed it was a tragically misguided way to try to solve the problem of illiberal dictatorships in the Middle East; a view which has fared quite a bit better than the "reverse domino theory" blather that liberal and illiberal hawks were spouting at the time.

World War I splintered the Progressive movement and Vietnam splintered mid-century liberalism, over very similar arguments.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | July 10, 2007 12:17 PM

"No, many "liberals" opposed the Iraq War because they believed it was a tragically misguided way to try to solve the problem of illiberal dictatorships in the Middle East; a view which has fared quite a bit better than the "reverse domino theory" blather that liberal and illiberal hawks were spouting at the time."

(Regardless if this is wrong or right, you are giving illiberal Saddam Hussein, much more illiberal than his American counterparts, the benefit of the doubt. I find it funny that liberals did this.)

Yeah and their non-misguided way to "solve" "the problem" of illiberal dictatorships - if there was one - would have been just as effective as it has been in "solving" the ongoing genocide in Darfur. Doing nothing often doesn't solve anything.

Of course it's legitmate to have been against the war in the first place, and against war with Iran now. That is there are one or two arguments that are legitimate and serious. There are many arguments against the war that are asinine and/or are contradictory with others.

My experience is that "many "liberals" opposed the Iraq War because" Bush was behind it. That is, he "lied," wanted military bases, oil. etc.

Fact is Saddam was bluffing, he wanted Israel and Iran to believe he might have WMDs so they wouldn't try anything. After 9/11 it was a stupid bluff.

There was less at stake in Kosovo than there is in Iraq. Many "liberals" didn't march against Kosovo b/c Clinton did it.

Posted by Peter K. | July 10, 2007 2:15 PM

Fact is Saddam was bluffing, he wanted Israel and Iran to believe he might have WMDs so they wouldn't try anything. After 9/11 it was a stupid bluff.

He did this by going around the world for more than a decade saying the sanctions were bullshit and that he wasn't interested in developing chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. Hell of a bluff!

Posted by Ed Marshall | July 10, 2007 2:40 PM

(Regardless if this is wrong or right, you are giving illiberal Saddam Hussein, much more illiberal than his American counterparts, the benefit of the doubt. I find it funny that liberals did this.)

Again, this is pure drivel. This is an utterly vacuous statement unless you define "giving him the benefit of the doubt" as "not invading his country," by which standard the entire US foreign policy establishment has been giving the North Korean regime the benefit of the doubt for 54 years. Forcing Saddam to submit to sanctions, inspections, and a no-fly zone may not sufficiently gratify the war party, but it hardly constitutes "giving him the benefit of the doubt."

Yeah and their non-misguided way to "solve" "the problem" of illiberal dictatorships - if there was one - would have been just as effective as it has been in "solving" the ongoing genocide in Darfur. Doing nothing often doesn't solve anything.

And, funnily enough, the quagmire in Iraq prevents the US from engaging with Darfur anyway. It's funny how apologists for the Iraq War never seem to admit this. It's also funny how the glaring distinction between an "ongoing genocide" and the generally unpleasant stability in Iraq is so casually elided by hawks. One might even get the humorous notion that someone who can't comprehend the difference in military, political, and feasibility terms between a humanitarian intervention and a full-scale invasion with post-war nation-building is probably also incapable of finding his ass if you spotted him a map and a compass.

Or rather it would be funny, if it weren't such a fucking tragedy.

There was less at stake in Kosovo than there is in Iraq. Many "liberals" didn't march against Kosovo b/c Clinton did it.

I'll type this slowly, so as to help you understand. In Kosovo, NATO launched an air campaign to stop ethnic cleansing. There were no ground troops, no US casualties, relatively few civilian targets were hit, and the Serbian government subsequently lost an election and left power after its attempts to rig the results met fierce public resistance. This bears a striking resemblance to Clinton's policy toward Iraq (the outcome was more successful, but the methods were essentially the same.)

This bears *absolutely no resemblance* to Bush's policy toward Iraq, which involved a full-scale invasion and an attempt to build a new government from the ground up in a nation that had no democratic institutions and has long, porous borders with Syria and Iran.

You might, if you exercise your grey matter a little bit, start to understand why so many liberals supported the war in Kosovo but opposed the war in Iraq. And while there were certainly some people running around chanting slogans such as "no blood for oil," I suspect they were in roughly the same proportion as the neocons who were running around saying that the war would pay for itself with oil revenues. The difference being that only one of these two ideas was considered intellectually serious by a major American political party.

I also find the notion that no one should be upset when their President engages in a deceptive pro-war PR campaign to be deeply illiberal, but that's a whole different can of worms.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | July 10, 2007 3:00 PM

My thoughts on this are confused. I find two reasons people use "progressive" instead of "liberal."

Firstly, there's the granola-eating, Nation-reading type crowd, for whom "liberal" means "liberal economics" - i.e. capitalism. "Progressive" for such people is a way of saying "social democratic" without saying "social democratic".

Secondly, there's the kind of people who don't want to call themselves liberals because it implies something too left wing. In this case, they use "progressive" as a way of saying "liberal" without saying "liberal".

These two usages, so far as I can tell, are directly the opposite of each other, even though I think they are sometimes also used to complement each other in a very confused and unclear way.

At any rate, I would say that I think the first use tends to be predominant, but is confused with the second. I find the first use to be fairly annoying. If "Liberal" was good enough for FDR and LBJ, it ought to be good enough for us today. Furthermore, as vague as "Liberal" might be, it does have a reasonably clear referent in the context of American politics. "Progressive" really doesn't, and if people want to criticize traditional American liberalism from the left (which is, in many ways, a useful project), they should just come out and call themselves social democrats.

Posted by John | July 10, 2007 3:09 PM

"If "Liberal" was good enough for FDR and LBJ, it ought to be good enough for us today."

If "Progressive" was good enough for TR, why wasn't it good enough for FDR? For the same reason why the word "Liberal" isn't terribly useful today. The Progressive movement fractured and went in various different directions, some of them highly unpopular.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | July 10, 2007 3:25 PM

they should just come out and call themselves social democrats.

Umm, hell no. SDUSA destroyed any meaning those words could ever have here.

Posted by Ed Marshall | July 10, 2007 3:30 PM

I'd take Democratic Socialist, on the other hand.

Posted by Ed Marshall | July 10, 2007 3:45 PM

"Again, this is pure drivel. This is an utterly vacuous statement unless you define "giving him the benefit of the doubt" as "not invading his country," by which standard the entire US foreign policy establishment has been giving the North Korean regime the benefit of the doubt for 54 years. Forcing Saddam to submit to sanctions, inspections, and a no-fly zone may not sufficiently gratify the war party, but it hardly constitutes "giving him the benefit of the doubt."

Yes it is giving North Korea the benefit of the doubt. Plus if N. Korea was invaded or bombed for the purposes of regime change, they would level Seoul, which has a population of 10.3 million (in 2006, more now). You would know that if you were serious and not merely trying to score points against the "war party."

Also, there was the Korean war in the '50s, but since then not much N. Korea. Meanwhile, I assume you know the illiberal Saddam Hussein's track record. Attacking Iran, annexing Kuwait, genocide etc. The supposed "box" Saddam was breaking down. It didn't work. So yes you did give Saddam the benefit of the doubt by saying he should be kept in power.

Posted by Peter K. | July 10, 2007 5:11 PM

Not mentioned anywhere in this thread is Henry Wallace's Progressive Party which ran in opposition to the cold war liberals and was full of fellow-travelers. I think this endeavor poisoned the “progressive” label for a long time for most, but also made it attractive for those further to the left – don’t forget that Vietnam was a war most closely associated with the liberal mainstream. Now the progressive label has lost the taint of Henry Wallace, but in the process has lost its past meaning vis-a-vis its opposition to traditional liberalism.

Posted by S. Weil | July 10, 2007 5:28 PM

Yes it is giving North Korea the benefit of the doubt. Plus if N. Korea was invaded or bombed for the purposes of regime change, they would level Seoul, which has a population of 10.3 million (in 2006, more now).

Exactly. Opposing the invasion of Iraq was only giving Saddam the benefit of the doubt in the sense that we doubted the potential upside of the operation would outweigh the downside. Just as nearly everyone has agreed for the past 50+ years in regard to North Korea.

The supposed "box" Saddam was breaking down. It didn't work.

Blah blah blah, spurious claims of necessity, no evidence provided, no contrary evidence considered. Wake me up when your alternative plan for Iraq starts to "work."

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | July 10, 2007 5:40 PM

La Follette Progressive - we're a lot further removed from TR style progressivism (or, for that matter, La Follette style progressivism) than we are from New Deal liberalism.

As do social democratic vs. democratic socialist, "social democratic" is the word used by the vast majority of the rest of the world to refer to their center-left political parties. That SDUSA was (is?) a bunch of reactionary hawks doesn't really detract from the general meaning of the term, since SDUSA is deeply obscure to most people. "Democratic Socialism," on the other hand, seems much more easily associated with, well, Moscow. The "Party of Democratic Socialism" in Germany, for instance, was the old East German ruling party in drag.

Just about any term for a political ideology has a ton of associations with the past that aren't necessarily appropriate. Just look at "conservatism," for instance. Modern day conservatives certainly have very little in common with the original meaning of the term in Continental Europe, which generally had to do with support for crown, established church, and the economic interests of wealthy traditional landed elites (i.e., the nobility). That doesn't stop them from using the term. "Liberal" as a description of the left side of American political discourse doesn't fit terribly well with the non-US understanding of "liberalism" (although there is of course a lot of common ground), but the current policies of the Democratic party are actually more conservative than the classic period of New Deal liberalism. I don't see why "liberalism" is now an inappropriate term, save that it's used as an attack line by conservatives.

Posted by John | July 10, 2007 6:08 PM

"Democratic Socialism," on the other hand, seems much more easily associated with, well, Moscow.

Cheap shot.

Besides, "social democratic" already means (and has since before the Russian revolution) "liberal" in the American sense of the word and all the warts that go with it. SDUSA's liberal hawkishness was a perfect example of what "social democrats" do, and why I wouldn't consider myself a liberal.

Posted by Ed Marshall | July 10, 2007 8:39 PM

Me:Yes it is giving North Korea the benefit of the doubt. Plus if N. Korea was invaded or bombed for the purposes of regime change, they would level Seoul, which has a population of 10.3 million (in 2006, more now).

LP:Exactly. Opposing the invasion of Iraq was only giving Saddam the benefit of the doubt in the sense that we doubted the potential upside of the operation would outweigh the downside. Just as nearly everyone has agreed for the past 50+ years in regard to North Korea."

No. Wrong. It was giving Saddam the benefit of the doubt about having WMDs. It was liberals taking a very illiberal dictator with a horrid track record at his word. Thats what Blix was doing. Fact is Saddam didn't comply, he kicked out inspectors, he bluffed. All awful mistakes.

Your evidence about Blix is just not convincing, and not just b/c of what the propagandists of the right have said.

Posted by Peter K. | July 11, 2007 11:38 AM

Fact is Saddam didn't comply, he kicked out inspectors, he bluffed. All awful mistakes.

You keep restating that. Your best defense for this is going to be the 9/11 commission, read their conclusions (which I'm sure are going to seem like they make sense to you), then re-read it and try and find one piece of actual evidence that supports this.

Posted by Ed Marshall | July 11, 2007 11:43 AM

Duelfer report, not 9/11

Posted by Ed Marshall | July 11, 2007 11:47 AM

Peter K says the facts are that Saddam didn't comply, kicked out inspectors, and bluffed. His evidence for these claims is, predictably, bupkus.

Hans Blix, who had some actual first-hand knowledge of the subject, said "In matters relating to process, notably prompt access to sites, we have faced relatively few difficulties." He added that it would be a matter of "not years, not weeks, but months" before he could complete the inspection process satisfactorily. This was on March 7th, 2003, less than two weeks before the war began.

According to Peter K, Hans Blix's testimony about how Saddam treated Hans Blix isn't convincing.

Even without the benefit of hindsight, it isn't hard to figure out which side of this debate deserved the benefit of the doubt.

So let's review:

1. Whether Saddam bluffed, cooperated, or secretly dreamed of becoming a Bond villain, the UN inspections actually did force Iraq to disarm.

2. There was arguably a "humanitarian crisis" in Iraq in 2003. There is inarguably a far larger humanitarian crisis there today.

3. In 2003, Iraq was not a liberal democracy. In 2007, Iraq is not a liberal democracy.

4. In 2003, Baath Party thugs occasionally seized Iraqis from their homes, raped and murdered them. In 2007, multiparty thugs frequently seize Iraqis from their homes, rape and murder them.

And to summarize Peter K's comments, anti-war liberals were wrong because they "gave the benefit of the doubt" to the people who correctly said that Saddam had few, if any, WMDs. Also, we might hypothetically oppose a humanitarian mission in Darfur that would coincidentally only be possible if the US Armed Forces weren't bogged down in Iraq. And we're terrible, terrible partisans despite protesting against our own party leaders in the US and UK who supported the war.

Did I leave out any of your thoughtful, well-rounded arguments, or is that a fair summary?

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | July 11, 2007 3:49 PM

I'll have a go at the definition of progressivism but have to start with liberal, however.

A political synthesis occurred in the first third of the 20th century that created our current conception of the term liberal by combining the progressive and populist movements that had been gaining prominence at differing stages in the various regions of the U.S. since some time following the Civil War.

I don't have time to go on about the two movements, but, basically: William Jennings Bryan was a populist and Teddy Roosevelt was a Progressive. FDR damn near tried everything during the depression (he even had a slightly fascist federal agency created called the National Recovery Administration before the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional. I actually admire him for his willingness to try different ideologically driven policies), and ended up sticking populism together with progressivism. This bond has remained as a broadly defined liberal coalition.

Posted by preslove | July 11, 2007 5:58 PM

"So let's review:
1. Whether Saddam bluffed, cooperated, or secretly dreamed of becoming a Bond villain, the UN inspections actually did force Iraq to disarm.
2. There was arguably a "humanitarian crisis" in Iraq in 2003. There is inarguably a far larger humanitarian crisis there today.
3. In 2003, Iraq was not a liberal democracy. In 2007, Iraq is not a liberal democracy.
4. In 2003, Baath Party thugs occasionally seized Iraqis from their homes, raped and murdered them. In 2007, multiparty thugs frequently seize Iraqis from their homes, rape and murder them."

Yes let's review.

1. Only reason we know Saddam was disarmed for sure is because of the regime change in 2003. Not the UN inspectors or the overrated Hans Blix. After 9-11, Saddam should have complied with the U.N. but he was stupid/arrogant and dragged his feet too much.

Read this slowly. He had since the end of the first Gulf War to comply. A decade. But for some mascochistic reason people like to give Saddam the benefit of the doubt.

Actually the CIA, and most Western Intelligence agencies said they just didn't know. They knew Saddam's track record thoroughly (unlike you and your type.)

2. There was arguably a "humanitarian crisis" in Iraq in 2003. There is inarguably a far larger humanitarian crisis there today

There would have been one anyway. Imagine when Saddam's two sons in charge? Uday and Qusay? #2 is a lot of speculation on your part. post-Saddam there could have been a much worse humanitarian crisis, and a war drawing in all of Iraq's neighbors. At least American soldiers wouldn't be dying. We'll probably see this after troops "redeploy" and liberals will blame Bush.

3. There is a slim chance there will be democracy in the future. Iraq borders Turkey which is a democracy and is trying to enter the Europe Union. It's not out of the question. Saudia Arabia, Iran, etc. don't want to see it happen. They want a dictatorship under their control. In 2003, pre-regime change: no chance of democracy for a long, long time. I.e. liberals dooming Iraqis to dictatorship for many generations.

4. In 2003, Baath Party thugs occasionally seized Iraqis from their homes, raped and murdered them. In 2007, multiparty thugs frequently seize Iraqis from their homes, rape and murder them."

Yeah, you got be impressed by the "insurgents" and jihadists efforts. Very effective. And Zarqawi and Al Qaeda in Iraq stated that they wanted to start a sunni-shia civil war. Looks like they're on their way. Slaughter enough pilgrims, bomb enough mosques...

At least the sanctions on Iraq are lifted. In 2003, we were already at war with Saddam, via the protection we were providing the Kurds in the North and the Shia in the South.
That couldn't go on forever, and in fact the UN system suposedly keeping Saddam in a "box" was breaking down. It was going back to the illiberal system of the minority 20% Sunni population and the Baath Party lording over the Kurds and majority Shia. And yet libeals were okay with this.

Why do many liberals try to whitewash illiberal Saddam's record???? Because Bush "framed" him. An enemy of Bush is a friend of theirs. Or at least the enemy of Bush isn't as bad as he's been made out to be.

Posted by Peter K. | July 12, 2007 4:38 PM