Posted on 11/03/2008 10:50:05 AM PST by WilliamReading
The Near East was a lot further away in those days, and the British and French were only too happy to assume control, with Wilson's blessing.
Wilson said "We intend to teach the Mexicans to elect good men," and that's the attitude Hart is talking about.
Obama has the Wilsonian worldview ~ which is why he'd get us in a huge war.
That's certainly possible. Hart is wrong about Obama.
"W" has no Wilsonian illusions.
If "W" is George W. Bush, and "Wilsonian" means "interventionist" or "world bettering", of course he does and did. Denying it now is pointless.
This former editor at National Review is clearly senile.
We can disagree with him about Obama without going nuclear on him.
He couldn't even raise an army for the venture until he'd sold out to the Pan Slavic Union folks in Chicago/Cleveland/Buffalo (etc.) who wanted the Austro-Hungarian Empire busted up (and a fat lot of good that idea was).
Wilson even waited around a year or so before he did anything about the sinking of the Lusitania ~ and we don't see anything like that in "W". He had us in war conquering Afghanistan in jig-time! Darned shame he didn't carry a larger armed force with him to Iraq and taken out Iran and Syria while we were at it.
Folks who see "Wilsonian ideals" in anything "W" did are a tad confused.
Now, regarding this senile old former editor at NR, he's a good example of why folks like that should be left in peace. Jimmy Carter is another good example of why you leave 'em alone.
Then people who object to "Wilsonian" interventionism may have good reason to run him down.
And I really doubt it was Chicago's Serbs or Czechs who made our intervention in Europe possible.
You also haven't considered Wilson's conduct in Mexico, which was a lot more impulsive than his response to Europe's war.
And you haven't addressed the optimistic idea that one can better the world through foreign intervention and give people democracy -- which people like Hart see at the heart of Wilsonianism and of Bush's policies.
I don't think Hart's right about Obama, and he may have been wrong about Iraq, but his terms aren't incoherent or nonsensical.
Maybe his attitude has to do with the Clinton-Bush era, when presidents turned out not to be as liberal or as conservative as their opponents feared. That's what he's betting on and where he may be wrong. If that era's over, then his conclusion is wrong.
BTW, what you need to do is go to the Indiana University slavic studies collections (which are immense), spend a few months digging through them (getting assistance in translating where needed), and lo and behold you find "negotiations" between Wilson's agents and ward healers in Chicago, et al, about what the US needed to demand of the Allies vis a vis Austria-Hungary. Once certain assurances were in place, the DRAFT BEGAN!
Absent those assurances the Slavs in the US were prepared to oppose the war ~ along with their German brethren!
Plenty of guys have gone through those papers enough times that there are a plethora of subect matter related reference works out there in most decent libraries.
Saddam and Son’s defense team just cannot get over the fact that they are DEAD!
Jeffrey Hart is in the same circle as George Will, Peggy Noonan and Colin Powell. They are Northeastern moderates/conservatives who are not born-again Christians.
If we are to win back the House and Senate we need to win back these people. Or they will jump on the GOP bandwagon if the see that we are winning.
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