Triumphalism indeed!

David Brooks asks us to take another look at Paul Wolfowitz in today's NY Times. No one in (or out of- but who supported the President on Iraq) the administration was and is subjected to more criticism and vilification than Paul Wolfowitz.


Let us now take another look at the man who has pursued - longer and more forcefully than almost anyone else - the supposedly utopian notion that people across the Muslim world might actually hunger for freedom.

Let us look again at the man who's been vilified by Michael Moore and the rest of the infantile left, who's been condescended to by the people who consider themselves foreign policy grown-ups, and who has become the focus of much anti-Semitism in the world today - the center of a zillion Zionist conspiracy theories, and a hundred zillion clever-Jew-behind-the-scenes calumnies.

Wolfowitz, in my humble opinion, became synonymous with "Neocon," and as such the pre-eminent target of criticism and derision from the left. Hardly fair, when you consider that most people using that term couldn't define it if their life depended on it.

On to the meat:

It's not necessary to absolve Wolfowitz of all sin or to neglect the postwar screw-ups in Iraq. Historians will figure out who was responsible for what, and Wolfowitz will probably come in for his share of the blame. But with political earthquakes now shaking the Arab world, it's time to step back and observe that over the course of his long career - in the Philippines, in Indonesia, in Central and Eastern Europe, and now in the Middle East - Wolfowitz has always been an ardent champion of freedom. And he has usually played a useful supporting role in making sure that pragmatic, democracy-promoting policies were put in place.

If the trends of the last few months continue, Wolfowitz will be the subject of fascinating biographies decades from now, while many of his smuggest critics will be forgotten. Those biographies will mention not only his intellectual commitment but also his personal commitment, his years spent learning the languages of the places that concerned him, and the thousands of hours spent listening deferentially to the local heroes who led the causes he supported.

To praise Wolfowitz is not triumphalism. The difficulties ahead are obvious. It's simple justice. It's a recognition that amid all the legitimate criticism, this guy has been the subject of a vicious piling-on campaign by people who know less than nothing about what is actually going on in the government, while he, in the core belief that has energized his work, may turn out to be right.

Brooks won't call it triumphalism, but should events continue along their current trajectory, I think a little triumphalism is deserved. Some might call it rude, but after the dog-piling that Wolfowitz and others have taken, I don't see that pointing out the level to which the naysayers might have been wrong is out of line. In fact, I might call it necessary.

I can hear the guys at ESPN choking on it even while I type. Given my documented treatment there however, I don't feel bad in the least pointing out where and how the left could have gotten it wrong.