Letters to the Editor
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@Paul Dirks and Bryan Hayward
I’m afraid that I either didn’t illustrate my point clearly, or you’re reading a level of hostility into my comment that frankly isn’t at all evident.
Labeling Mr. Greenwald “liberal” or “civil libertarian” is far more a distinction without a difference than Mr. Greenwald labeling Mr. Kirchik “right-wing” as a euphemism for “conservative” when Mr. Kirchik isn't really anything of the sort. It is unclear to me how this is “ironic,” given that the vast majority of the time Mr. Greenwald exemplifies, in the best of senses, liberal traditions, whereas Mr. Kirchik is not, if one has bothered to read his work, so easily categorized. Conversely, both of you seem to feel that Mr. Kirchik’s hawkishness and unrepentant (and malodorous) bigotry consign him to “conservatism.” This is, as I pointed out, perfectly illustrative of the adherence to a strange sort of dogma that I criticized Mr. Greenwald for. That the right-wing lionizes people who agree with their position on the war is not strange. That we should allow this to set the tone of the debate and likewise charge “fellow travelers” like Mr. Kirchik as being full-blown neoconservatives or right-wingers is not just a logical fallacy, it speaks as a direct contradiction to the liberal tradition.
The point is not, Mr. Hayward, who “re-aligned” the political spectrum, but that liberals (or civil libertarians, if you must) need not – and indeed must not – buy into it. Using someone's foreign policy position on the Middle East as the bellweather on their political allegiances isn't merely specious, its caustic to reasoned debate.