American Flag Blog

In February 2003, Princeton historian and self-proclaimed leftist Sean Wilentz appeared as a panelist at a symposium sponsored by David Horowitz and his online publication, FrontPageMagazine.com. The subject that day was “The ‘Peace’ Movement: a Front for the Anti-American Left?”

To the question, “What is legitimate dissent and what is betrayal of your country?,” Wilentz answered in part, “All dissent is legitimate. Betrayal is not dissent. Betrayal is beyond dissent, taking conscious actions against the country of your citizenship on behalf of another country.”

When his turn came, Horowitz agreed with Wilentz to a point, but made this important distinction:

“All dissent is legitimate and should be protected speech. No dissent is treason as defined by the laws of the land. However, dissent that refuses to make a distinction between Iraq and America, dissent that compares our leaders to Nazis, dissent at this point in time that incites organized opposition to our nation’s efforts to defend itself is betrayal. Two presidents have asked for authorization to use force against Iraq, and both parties have voted to give that authorization to Bush. In war, some sort of basic unity against the enemy is necessary. To seek to disrupt that unity is to aid the enemy.”

Horowitz, it should be pointed out, was a founding member of the New Left movement of the 60’s who repented and now works tirelessly to alert Americans to the dangers of the current leftist movement.

In the late 90’s, Wilentz actively defended then President Clinton against the prospect of impeachment, warning Republicans that they risked doing irreparable damage to the Office of the Presidency. Of course, the damage had already been done by a President who viewed the Oval Office as a good place to solicit sexual favors from the willing young groupies known as interns.

Well now it appears that Wilentz may be about to throw caution to the wind and do some damage of his own to the Office of the Presidency whilst walking the tight-rope of betrayal. In an issue of Rolling Stone magazine that will hit the newsstands on Friday, Wilentz tackles the question, (is Bush) “The Worst President in History?”

Coming off back-to-back terms of Bill Clinton with Jimmy Carter still visible in the rear-view mirror, the question is at best ridiculous. The left taunted Reagan in a similar fashion and history proved how wrong they were. Perhaps history will judge Wilentz as a poor historian but a very good shill for the left, who knows?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 18th, 2006 at 6:46 pm and is filed under The American Scene. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.