Dems wonder "What if Bush was right"

Mark Noonan learned from the Wednesday, March 2 posting by Tom Elia on The New Editor identifying a very interesting item on the left wing FunctionalAmbivalent entitled Bush, Greatness and the End of the Liberalism which raises the question So here's something I've been thinking about lately: What if President Bush ends up being remembered by history as a great President?

What if the Neocons were right about the Middle East, that it was at a tipping point just waiting for someone to give it a shove toward the modern world? What if Iraq really was the key?

He goes on to identify a number of additional "what if" dominoes, and then asks the question What do we do if President Bush was right? What do we do if the Mideastern dominoes start falling and President Bush goes down in history as Winston Churchill, while we go down as Neville Chamberlain, howling weakly that diplomacy works and military force is no longer necessary? What if our most conservative President goes down in history as a great contributor to the liberal ideals of freedom and tolerance, while we Democrats -- we liberals -- go down as cold-hearted and fearful, unconcerned about the suffering of our fellows while we sit contentedly in our affluence? If that happens, are we even liberals any more?

There are some very interesting comments and trackbacks to his interesting post. Some are the normal "angry left" sort of responses one usually finds on Daily Kos or Atrios but there are some that seem to indicate that Tom (the poster of the question) may not be the only Democrat that can think and reason.


I believe that Bush was right, and that the dominos are falling, and when they finish falling I hope that the loud Bush Haters will be so stunned that reasonable Democratic voices like Tom's will be able to be heard.

To answer Tom's question, yes you will still be liberals, but hopefully once the dominos have fallen, and the loud Bush Haters are stunned into silence, I hope that we can have some reasonable discussions, because there are a number of things that need to be accomplished on a bi-partisan level, that just can't be accomplished with the Bush Haters screaming so loudly.