MYTHOLOGICAL CREATURES OF POST-9/11 AMERICA. Surely one of the most tiresome, transparently ridiculous neoconservative charges against liberals who oppose George W. Bush's cunning plan to create Arab democracy by bombing Arabs is that liberals do so out of a belief in the innate incapacity of Arabs for democracy. It's fitting, then, that Marty Peretz not only subscribes to this argument himself, but presents it now as if it were fresh and insightful:
There is in an irony here. Conservatives believe that culture is the decisive factor in societies, and that it is static. Now, conservatives want to see a revolution in culture that turns hidebound Arab autocrats into liberals. On the other hand, liberals intensely dislike arguments from culture. In their eyes, such arguments are racist and reactionary. But now they, too, have switched sides. Arabs are intransigent because they are intransigent, they are doctrinaire because they are doctrinaire, they are violent because they are violent. And that is how it is and will be. (emphasis added)
I have to ask: Who are the liberals who believe this? Has anyone ever seen one of them in the wild? Does even a blurry photograph exist?--Matthew Duss
