History's Fools

I liked this observation from NRO's The Corner, in reference to a NY Post column:

John Podhoretz nails it today in the New York Post, where he argues that the left doesn't believe in anything overseas anymore besides despair. Paul Johnson made a related point in a piece for us a while ago--that the left's new faith, now that socialism has died, is pessimism. I'm struck by this when I'm on college campuses. I want to say to these kids (and professors), “OK, you think Bush's foreign policy is a disaster, but what do you believe, what's the alternative, what's your vision?” There is none. These people believe in nothing. They aren't even soft-headed idealists anymore because Bush's idealistic rhetoric has prompted them to reject idealism. All they have is a smug faith in American failure, that whatever we do--literally whatever we do: whether its militaristic or altruistic or something in between--is wrong and doomed to fail.

Just as "Fat, drunk, and stupid" is no way to go through life, neither is "pessimistic".

Why, it's downright Anti-American!