The Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed today from Peter Berkowtiz, a senior fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution, who argued that the left “prides itself on, and frequently boasts of, its superior appreciation of the complexity and depth of moral and political life,” when in fact it’s the right that takes the competition of ideas seriously. As Berkowtiz sees it, the left is coming together ideologically, “untroubled by debate or dissent,” while the intellectually-serious right is in the midst of a rigorous ideological struggle.
At face value, this struck me as rather silly, but I’ll bite. OK, Mr. Berkowtiz, let’s see some evidence.
Consider Iraq. The split among conservatives has widened since Saddam was toppled in the spring of 2003. Traditional realists continue to put their trust in containment, and reject nation-building on the grounds that we lack both a moral obligation and the requisite knowledge of Arabic, Iraqi culture and politics, and Islam. Supporters of the war still argue that, in an age of mega-terror, planting the seeds of liberty and democracy in the Muslim Middle East is a reasonable response to the poverty, illiteracy, authoritarianism, violence and religious fanaticism that plagues the region.
In contrast, Democrats today are nearly united in the belief that the invasion has been a fiasco and that we must withdraw promptly. Indeed, rare is the Democrat (Sen. Joe Lieberman was compelled to run as an Independent) who does not sound like a traditional realist denying both America’s moral obligation to remain in Iraq and its capacity to bring order to the country.
Last week, when Congress voted on Bush’s war-funding supplemental, Republicans voted together as a united bloc, while Dems were largely divided — all of which undermines Berkowtiz’s point — but let’s put that aside for the time being.
For the better part of four years, the right has argued that the left is divided on Iraq, which highlights intellectual confusion among Democrats on foreign policy. Now, as Bush’s policy has become a more obvious failure, and Democrats have coalesced around an alternative policy, Dems are now intellectually lazy. I guess some parties just can’t win.
But more importantly, Berkowtiz’s observation doesn’t bolster his point in any meaningful way. Dems, after years of debate, are now largely opposed to the president’s policy. Republicans have been largely supportive of the policy from the outset, but are now starting to second-guess the administration. This doesn’t point to a GOP that appreciates “the complexity and depth of moral and political life”; it points to a GOP that is on a sinking ship and starting to think those lifeboats look pretty good.
Consider also abortion rights and embryonic stem-cell research. Here too, the right is torn, with the social conservative wing opposed to both, and the small government, libertarian wing supporting both. […]
And look at same-sex marriage. Again, the right is rent by serious difference of opinion. A crucial segment of those who voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004 think that the Constitution should be amended to protect the traditional understanding of marriage as a union between one man and one woman. Another crucial segment of the Republican coalition rejects alteration of the Constitution to advance debatable social policy, preferring that states function as laboratories of innovation.
You mean there’s a division within the Republican Party between its libertarian wing and its socially conservative base? You don’t say. It’s not as if this schism has existed for, say, a couple of generations now.
Berkowtiz seems anxious to prove the impressiveness of modern Republican thought, but can’t quite deliver. There’s a reason for this — it’s a mirage. There are some policy matters on which the GOP is divided, but for the most part, the party prides itself on its unity. That’s what makes divisions over Iraq and stem-cell research notable — the party that’s supposed to stick together regardless of circumstance occasionally finds rifts.
As for the majority party, if Berkowtiz truly believes Democrats are “untroubled by debate or dissent,” put 10 Democratic members of Congress in a room for an hour and ask them to discuss anything. I dare you.