In defense of liberalism

Sullivan posted a good quote from Leon Wieseltier's recent TNR article defending liberalism:

"The response of the right to the crisis in America was to flee to its
catechism. The Republicans propose to bail out the economy with doctrine.
Unemployment is 7.6 percent and rising, and they say: let them eat Friedman.
When billions and billions of dollars are needed for the Pentagon (fine with me)
and for Wall Street, it is damn the zeroes, full speed ahead--but when the
prospect of relief for ordinary Americans in trouble rears its fair and
compassionate head, the deficit desperately matters again. The Republicans are
not only heartless, they are also hypocritical, since the cause of all this
misery was the market abandon that they promoted so messianically. These are the
people who would have privatized, that is, destroyed, Social Security: how can
their protests not be met vehemently? This vehemence is not "partisanship," it
is analysis. It is not "populism," it is liberalism."

Sullivan went later took on Leon for not being totally fair to conservatism.

I thought it was a good example of the dialouge the country deserves to be having between its majority and minority parties. Instead, the Republicans are telling folks to count from Jesus and other nonsense.

Pity.