At just about the same time, another pillar of the establishment, the BBC, canceled a documentary on Pvt. Johnson Beharry, who was awarded the Victoria Cross for his heroism in Iraq. The story, a BBC source said, was "too positive." Or it would antagonize Muslims or war opponents. Beharry, you see, although a West Indian by origin, has joined the oppressor class by serving heroically.
Meanwhile, far from Britain, in Littleton, Colo., some citizens are trying to prevent the erecting of a statue honoring Navy SEAL Danny Dietz, a local son who died while serving heroically in Afghanistan. It sends the wrong message, these worthies argue, to honor someone wielding a gun in a community that suffered a massacre in its high school in 1999. That's an argument that only makes sense if you suppose that Dietz was in the oppressor class, no more morally worthy than the maniacs who murdered their fellow students and teachers.
This urge to see the victim class as virtuous and the oppressor class as villainous leads people in countries like the United States and Britain to sympathize more with our enemies than our defenders. This is not new.
"England is, I believe, the only country in which, during a great war, eminent men write and speak publicly as if they belonged to the enemy," said Lord Salisbury a century ago. Now you can add America to the list.
"Before I left for Iraq," John McCain said in a speech last week at the Virginia Military Institute, "I watched with regret as the House of Representatives voted to deny our troops the support necessary to carry out their new mission. Democratic leaders smiled and cheered as the last votes were counted. What were they celebrating? Defeat? Surrender? In Iraq, only our enemies were cheering."
McCain just doesn't get it. Our enemies are virtuous victims. We are the evil oppressors. Just like those Duke lacrosse players.
Michael Barone
Michael Barone, senior political analyst for The Washington Examiner (
www.washingtonexaminer.com), is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Fox News Channel contributor and a co-author of The Almanac of American Politics. To find out more about Michael Barone, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
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