It’s a sad state of affairs when the issue of freedom in other countries is seen as a Bush idiosyncracy. Back in the days when Liberals were liberal, it was a cause that almost everyone in the United States favored. But here is a headline and lead paragraph from an article in Monday’s WSJ:
Pakistan Crackdown Slows Bush’s Freedom March
President Bush’s vaunted “freedom agenda,” using U.S. aid, influence and example to advance political liberty around the globe, suffered one of its worst setbacks this weekend when Gen. Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency in Pakistan.
I suppose it’s hard for the average newspaper journalist to ever stop thinking about George Bush. And there are those who are going to think of every event in terms of whether it hurts or helps their partisan faction. But isn’t this crackdown also a blow to the freedom of the people of Pakistan? Shouldn’t that issue be just as important as whether it helps or hurts Bush?
And if it’s too hard to focus on the lives of people in other countries, there is also the fact that every loss of freedom elsewhere is a threat to our own freedoms in the United States, too.
It’s not all about Bush.