In his post last month on Tony Blair’s compelling speech to Congress, Harry wondered how anyone could mistake it for anything but a statement of left internationalist principles.
Now in a delayed reaction, the mainstream (i.e., non-Buchananite) conservative columnist George Will declares Blair’s remarks to be totally at odds with his principles.
Will, who seems unaware that there is such a thing as a left internationalist, writes:
Bush and Blair and many people called neoconservatives believe that moral objectives in politics are universally applicable imperatives. If so, then either national cultures do not significantly differ, or they do not matter or they are infinitely malleable under the touch of enlightened reformers. But all three propositions are false and antithetical to all that conservatism teaches about the importance of cultural inertia and historical circumstances.
Though I fundamentally disagree with Will, I think he raises some important points that those of us who applauded Blair need to deal with. But I am comforted in a way to know that on this matter, I’m on the other side from at least one leading voice of the right.
