Cruel to be kind

When I was in high school, there was a bouncy pop song called "Cruel to be kind." In it, the male singer complained about how his girl hurt him, and quoted her explanation for the pain she cause:

Cruel to be kind, in the right measure
Cruel to be kind, it's a very good sign
Cruel to be kind, means that I love you
Baby, you gotta be cruel to be kind

I thought of these lyrics when I read this opening to a longer op-ed piece in the American Thinker:

For several months, I have felt like the little boy in The Emperor’s New Clothes. Standing in the middle of a crowd of my elders and betters, watching the current political spectacle, I have been waiting for someone to say the obvious, waiting in vain until I feel compelled to blurt it out myself.

Here goes: “Many Democrats want the US to fail in Iraq!” I don’t mean that they think we’ll fail—they want us to. They want a big embarrassing collapse of US military and political policy in Iraq and will do whatever they can to make it happen. There, I’ve said it and I feel much better.

That doesn’t mean that they are traitors, taking bribes from al Qaeda, or prepared to jeopardize their country’s welfare to advance their careers. Not all of them, at least. There are some prominent Democrats who are morally so far gone that they may just possibly think that way. (After all, a person who can think up Travelgate is capable of any infamy.)

But the vast majority of Democrats think of themselves as loyal Americans and a polygraph would show that they honestly believe it.

The neural pathways inside their heads run something like this:

• The best thing for the United States would be for the Democratic party to come back into power.

• A really embarrassing failure in Iraq would tip next year’s election toward the Democrats.

• Therefore, a failure in Iraq would be good for the USA.

Take another issue, illegal immigrants. I contend that, if for no other reason than homeland security, it is essential that we seal our borders against illegal immigrants and expel the ones we have now. The reason behind the Democratic party’s insistent call for amnesty for all illegal immigrants has nothing to do with compassion; the syllogism is rather:

• The best thing for the United States would be for the Democratic party to come back into power.

• Illegal Hispanic immigrants, if naturalized, would vote overwhelmingly Democratic.

• Therefore, the naturalization of illegal immigrants would be good for the USA.

Yup. I think that pretty much nails a lot of the thinking on the anti-War side of the spectrum. It's this same weird Schadenfreude that has Demos delighted by the soaring gas prices that are hurting so many people and that will inevitably take a toll on the economy. They don't care that the gas prices result from gouging by our friends in Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, nor that a large chunk of change from every gallon goes to pay taxes. (Surprisingly, California has a good primer on all this.) They point their fingers at the oil companies, and promise that they'll destroy these nasty companies that, in good times and bad, get gas to our tanks.

It's one thing to promise that you can do better. It's another thing to hope that America goes to Hell in a handbasket so that you can prove your point.

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