Even conservatives agree with me

Andrew Sullivan asks why the Bush administration should want to ally itself with Islamist states on issues like women's rights and gay rights. The Bull Moose practically echoes my sentiments:

Haven't these folks heard the President's "axis of evil" speech? After all, they are working with two of the three rogue state miscreants. One of their ranks even stated, "We have realized that without countries like Sudan, abortion would have been recognized as a universal human right in a U.N. document." Hello! Sudan is the notorious state that still practices slavery against its Christian population. Freedom for the unborn, but chains for the born?

[...]

What's next? A strategic alliance with Satan? A religious right conference on Hezbollah family values?

Off the Pine makes a good point that I'd been thinking about but hadn't said:

This issue also gives Dems a golden opportunity to wrest the monopoly on flag-waving currently enjoyed by the GOP. There are a large number of liberal/libertarian hawks who disdain religious fundamentalism but see the Dems as soft on foreign policy. The Dems need to become the party of exporting liberal values (first and foremost gender equality) abroad. The question is whether they will be able to shed their own culture warriors' instinctive relativism to do so.

I can sure imagine an effective ad campaign to take the GOP to task for this. I can't imagine my GOP-leaning friends would be too happy to see such a thing.

All links via Matthew Yglesias.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on June 19, 2002 to Other punditry