March 7, 2006

TOO SILLY EVEN FOR HIM:

Judicious Double Standards (Richard Cohen, March 7, 2006, Washington Post)

Back behind my high school one day, we all assembled to watch a fistfight. To my immense pleasure, a bully was being bested by his victim. Then the bully's friend stepped in and ended matters with a swift kick to the other guy's midsection. It was an unfair ending to what was supposed to be a fair fight, but it taught me a valuable lesson: You treat your friends differently than you do your enemies.

This elemental principle of life, love and other matters seems utterly lost on so many critics of George Bush's agreement to provide India with civilian nuclear technology. In doing so, we are told, he has done something truly awful -- established a double standard. Well, duh -- yes. India is our friend and Iran, just to pick an example, is not.

The cry of "double standard" is a bit silly.


But, to be fair, it's no sillier than the port hysteria, the Katrina caterwauling, or the Dick Cheney kerfuffle.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 7, 2006 11:51 AM
Comments

Lovely anecdote from Mr Cohen. Even then he was watching from the sides and wouldn't step in to help someone he favored in a fight.

Posted by: Brandon at March 7, 2006 12:09 PM

Brandon: Few ever do. It is just that observation that proves that "collective security" or a United Nations/League of Nations isn't practicable. The answer to "Who Will Bell the Cat" is dismally obvious.

Posted by: Mikey at March 7, 2006 12:22 PM

There was a truly bizarre op-ed from Niall Ferguson (OK, that's an increasingly redundant phrase these days) in the LA Times yesterday in which he pretty much restates his UK Gladstone column from over the weekend. One of his points is that the next President will of course adopt all of Gladstone's points, including the notion that all nations must be treated as equals. I'm not sure if that makes this particular column surpass for sheer political idiocy the one where he claimed that Mayor Bloomberg was a major contender for the Presidential nomination in '08 because he shows how Republicans can win in the blue states, but it's up there...

Posted by: b at March 7, 2006 1:14 PM

"Democrats are our friends and Republicans, just to pick an example, are not." MSM


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Posted by: ic at March 7, 2006 2:48 PM
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