THE COUNTERPRODUCTIVE ENDORSEMENTS JUST KEEP COMING:

Did We Have It Coming? (Lee Harris, 03/23/2004, Tech Central Station)

"This is the culture in which we live… The world is ruled by force. The only way we can put a permanent end to terrorism is to stop participating in it… This is the first time the guns have been pointed the other way."

-- Noam Chomsky, discussing the events of 9/11/01.

Noam Chomsky has endorsed, however reluctantly, John Kerry.

This is an endorsement from the man who, on hearing about 9/11, attempted to put it in perspective for the American people by arguing that President Clinton had murdered many times more people in his response to the Al Qaeda bombing in Kenya than Al Qaeda had murdered on 9/11. The fact that Mr. Chomsky had not a shred of evidence for this blood libel did not kept him from making it. After all, he had something far better than evidence -- he had his own opinion; or what Jeremy Bentham called ipsedixitism: something is true because I myself have said it is true.

Yet Noam Chomsky was by no means alone in standing up in the days immediately following 9/11 and declaring that 9/11 was the expected and natural reaction of those who had been oppressed by American hegemony, and who, however immaturely, were fighting back in retaliation for what we had done to them. [...]

Now let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that these critics of America are right. Let us suppose that when the terrorists struck us we had done more than enough bad things to deserve such an attack. But now let me ask these apologists for terrorism a simple question:

If we had it coming then, don't we have it coming even worse right now?

At this rate the Democratic convention is going to resemble Hades.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 28, 2004 5:10 PM