Rove
Karl Rove was caught generalizing, perhaps even pandering, to a group of conservatives.
"Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers."
Andrew Sullivan had a fit over the remarks, and I suppose I can see his point to an extent. If one were to classify liberals as Democrats, then Rove would be completely off base in his analysis. Many Democrats have stood with President Bush in the War on Terror, be it the obvious (Joe Lieberman) or the not-so-obvious (Hillary Clinton).
But Rove is simply using the term "liberals" as the way he sees it. Rove has played a major role in the current political scene, where to be called liberal is to be called a dove, or even weak.
Remember how John Kerry fought to stay away from the "liberal" label? Now, some Democrats appear to be embracing the term so that they have a right to be offended.
Rove said something that left-hawks like Christopher Hitchens have already said. He just substituted the word "liberal" for "left."
And besides, since when has anything Karl Rove said ever mattered to the left? They view him as a evil genius anyway, a symbol of their distrust of the right.
I have, in the past, used this space to make fun of Howard Dean and Michael Moore, among others who I disagree with. Moore is a liberal who would fit Rove's definition of liberal.
At the same time, I have friends who I would consider "liberal," many of whom were not against intervention in Afghanistan. So, I don't agree with Rove, but only because my definition of the term is different than his.
So to recap:
I don't agree with Rove, but I think some are being opportunistic.