Michael Tomasky joins in piling onto Roger Cohen’s latest column whining about how “the left” has demonized the neocons.
Tomasky is quick, however, to label himself as a “liberal”, not a member of “the anti-militarist left”. Now, the definition of “militarism” depends on which dictionary you look at, but Merriam Webster has a couple of them:
1 a : predominance of the military class or its ideals b : exaltation of military virtues and ideals
2 : a policy of aggressive military preparedness
As a leftist, I, quite frankly, am more than willing to say that I don’t believe that society ought to place military ideals above any others. The military in this country is supposed to be subordinate to the civilian authority.
Likewise, the armed forces are supposed to be used for the defense of the country. Aggression isn’t about defense, it’s related to domination, provocation, and destruction.
Tomasky’s playing the same game as Cohen. Cohen doesn’t want to be lumped in as a neocon so he calls himself a “liberal hawk” and dumps on the leftists. Tomasky doesn’t want to be called a leftist, so he appropriates the badge of “liberal” for himself and his buddies who supported invading Afghanistan and (mostly) invading Iraq, and dumps on the leftists.
Ten, fifteen, twenty years from now, Tomasky’s going to be writing a column whining about people confusing him with the neo-neo-cons.