Fox News Sunday hosted Democratic West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller yesterday morning. Blaster and Andrew Sullivan have covered the senator's attempt to repeat the "imminent" lie and subsequent flimsy play with Bush's own words when faced with them. Later in the interview, Rockefeller went on to casually dismiss the idea of Arabs capable of peacefully governing themselves. Blinkered doesn't even begin to describe this. Bigoted argumentum ad antiquitatem is a little more accurate:

There has never really been an Arab democratic state. The British tried after World War I in Iraq and failed. The British tried after World War II in Iraq and failed.

So far we have failed. We're making an effort. Yes, we have a council. Yes, we have a few elected representatives.

But, as he implies, Arabs just aren't cut out for the job? The $87 billion is a wasted investment? The Senator is oblivious to the cultural aspect of this war - that terrorism is not some phantom aberration in those "eighty countries" of al Qaeda operation he references, but a direct, cancerous outgrowth of repression. He speaks as if every single one of the major host countries weren't either an unstable democracy or an out-and-out dictatorship.

So let's set that aside for a moment. Rockefeller's antecedent for the eye-popping quotation is that Americans would "resent" money being channeled to rebuild a nation where its people have literally had no opportunities and will have none until individual freedoms can be protected by an elected government. Carp about misfortune and opportunity in America all you like; our borders wouldn't be fenced if people weren't desperately trying to get in by the city block. And they understand the difference between circumstantial poorness and tyrannical oppression more acutely than anyone. A diversion of domestic spending, by no means miserly under Bush, is no argument, either. So who would resent this money - used to reach beyond ourselves and help others while protecting national security interests - other than the usual host who have always thought natural rights to be a Western phenomenon? A prejudiced and isolationist doctrine better in the hands of Joseph Kennedy or Pat Buchanan, this describes the dead end road where much of the left has hunkered down. Rockefeller is on the losing end of this issue, but his remarks aren't any less outrageous.

AND ANOTHER THING: In light of Rockefeller's more memorable statements during his Sunday interview, I'd forgotten about his reinterpretation of Congress' resolution authorizing military force against Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Unbelievable. As Porphyrogenitus suggests, the Senator is either incompetent or dishonest.