Both sides should politicize national security JAMES KIRCHICK <http://www.nydailynews.com/authors/James%20Kirchick>
Sunday, January 10th 2010, 11:21 AM RELATED NEWS - Louis: Scrap this junk lawsuit<http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2010/01/10/2010-01-10_scrap_this_junk_lawsuit.html> - Reid to Obama: Sorry for 'no Negro dialect' remark<http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2010/01/09/2010-01-09_reid_sez_hes_sorry_for_bam_negro_gaffe.html> - New book claims Schumer favored Bam before Hillary<http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2010/01/10/2010-01-10_did_chuck_back_bam_book_sez_schumer_favored_him_over_hil.html> - Bill Clinton help sink Hillary's chances of a Kennedy endorsement by belitting Obama<http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2010/01/10/2010-01-10_bill_clinton_told_ted_kennedy_that_president_obama.html> - Gov. Paterson threatens to raise taxes on cigarettes to cover health care costs<http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/01/10/2010-01-10_gov_paterson_threatens_to_raise_taxes_on_cigarettes_to_cover_health_care_costs.html> - WASHINGTON <http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Washington%2c+DC> - When Republicans criticized the Obama administration<http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Barack+Obama>'s handling of the thwarted Christmas Day terrorist attack, complaints from Democrats <http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/U.S.+Democratic+Party> were as predictable as they were perfunctory. Once again, the GOP<http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/U.S.+Republican+Party>was "politicizing" the sacrosanct issue of national security. MSNBC<http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/MSNBC+Interactive+News+LLC> 's Rachel Maddow <http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Rachel+Maddow> called Republican congressman and Michigan<http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Michigan> gubernatorial candidate Pete Hoekstra <http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Pete+Hoekstra>, who had sent a fund-raising letter mentioning the incident, the "mascot" of "trying to politicize terrorism." Democratic congresswoman Loretta Sanchez<http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Loretta+Sanchez> called Hoekstra's missive "completely inappropriate" because "we cannot afford to politicize the security of our people." Rather than engage its critics, the White House<http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/The+White+House> adopted a holier-than-thou approach to the controversy. "The President doesn't think we should play politics with issues like these," spokesman Bill Burton<http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Bill+Burton> told reporters. That's strange, for the supposed gravity of an issue hasn't stopped liberals from "playing politics" with other matters they deem to be of life and death importance - or from "playing politics," repeatedly, with national security in the past. The truth is, politicization of an issue ought not be an accusation at all. It's by politicizing issues, no matter what they are, no matter which party does it, that we debate them. And it's through debating them that we engage in the democratic process. But that reality hasn't stopped Democrats from hurling around the term like a grenade. Just last month, as the massive health care overhaul hinged on the votes of a handful of Senate moderates, the Washington Post<http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/The+Washington+Post+Company> 's Ezra Klein <http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Ezra+Klein> chalked up the opposition of one of those lawmakers, Connecticut<http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Connecticut> 's Joe Lieberman <http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Joseph+Lieberman>, to nothing more than vanity and spite. Lieberman, Klein alleged, "seems willing to cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in order to settle an old electoral score." Such poisonous rhetoric has long characterized liberal discourse on a whole host of issues, from welfare reform to Social Security privatization to government-funded health insurance for children. Whenever Republicans talk about cutting social spending, liberals invariably accuse them of plans to throw the tired, the poor and the weak onto the street if it can produce a tax cut. Over the summer, the Democratic National Committee<http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Democratic+National+Committee> accused GOP Sen. Jim DeMint <http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Jim+DeMint> of attempting to "politicize the issue of health insurance reform." This statement, the sort of thing that flows effortlessly from the mouths of political hacks in this city, is a truism. Restructuring the country's massive health insurance industry has consumed Congress for over six months. Endless amounts of columnar space have been devoted to debate on the subject, along with countless hours of television and radio, not to mention a series of all-nighters on Capitol Hill<http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Capitol+Hill>. It is a complex issue with multiple stakeholders, about which experts propose a variety of remarkably diverse solutions. How can an elected senator possibly debate health care reform without politicizing it? And more to the point, why on earth would he not want to politicize it? Cowardly cordoning off certain topics as too solemn for political disputation is a bipartisan affliction. One of the more annoying conservative mantras, slung often during the Bush administration at those who opposed its foreign policy, is that politics "stops at the water's edge." That may have been the case in 1950, when the dictum was attributed to Sen. Arthur Vandenberg<http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Arthur+Vandenberg>. Then, there was a foreign policy consensus about both the nature of the external threat (the Soviet Union<http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/U.S.S.R.>) facing the United States <http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/United+States> and the best means of combating it (containment). But that consensus ripped apart with the Vietnam<http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Vietnam> War, and it's never healed. After 9/11, conservatives lambasted liberals who opposed American intervention into Afghanistan<http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Afghanistan> and later Iraq <http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Iraq> and dared criticize the Bush administration for what they believed to be the dangerous course down which it was taking the country. The popular blogger Andrew Sullivan<http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Andrew+Sullivan>(who, incredibly, has since refashioned himself into a liberal), went so far as to accuse the "decadent Left in its enclaves on the coasts" as comprising a "Fifth Column." But those who opposed the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq had every right to make their opposition heard. And make it known they did, often crossing the line from reasoned critique into hysteria. Do the people now complaining about the right's "politicization" of national security and foreign policy forget Michael Moore<http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Michael+Moore>'s "Fahrenheit 9/11?" Or the ridiculous claims that the Iraq War was fought on behalf ofHalliburton <http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Halliburton+Company> ? It seems the maxim about the "water's edge" holds only when one's own side is in power. With President Obama occupying the White House, conservatives have hardly been hesitant in finding things about which to complain. From his tendency to apologize overseas to his cancellation of missile defense systems in Eastern Europe <http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Eastern+Europe>, conservatives have voiced many of the sorts of criticisms about the President which they, just a few years ago, scolded liberals for uttering about his predecessor. It is nearly impossible to imagine a way to debate the complex questions surrounding the war on terrorism — which rights to give detainees, how to interrogate suspects, when to engage in preemptive war — without engaging in dreaded “politicization.” Determining which issue isn't kosher for "politicization," then, becomes a form of special pleading. We all have our sacred cows, and it suits us to declare certain topics off-limits. But in a country where the powers of the state derive from those it governs, it's inevitable that practically everything under the sun will emerge as a subject of political debate. Rather than bemoan this, we ought appreciate just how lucky we are to live in a democracy where we have the luxury to complain about the amplification of politics, as opposed to their suppression. 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