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5bb6eb0 George Bush made a mistake when he referred to the Saddam Hussein regime as 'evil.' Every liberal and leftist knows how to titter at such black-and-white moral absolutism. What the president should have done, in the unlikely event that he wanted the support of America's peace-mongers, was to describe a confrontation with Saddam as the 'lesser evil.' This is a term the Left can appreciate. Indeed, 'lesser evil' is part of the essential tactical rhetoric of today's Left, and has been deployed to excuse or overlook the sins of liberal Democrats, from President Clinton's bombing of Sudan to Madeleine Albright's veto of an international rescue for Rwanda when she was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Among those longing for nuance, moral relativism--the willingness to use the term evil, when combined with a willingness to make accommodations with it--is the smart thing: so much more sophisticated than 'cowboy' language. morality moral-absolutism presidency-of-george-w-bush presidency-of-bill-clinton al-shifa-pharmaceutical-factory rwanda rwandan-genocide sudan bill-clinton anti-war ba-ath-party democratic-party-united-states opposition-to-the-iraq-war george-w-bush iraq saddam-hussein united-nations peace-movement iraq-war united-states madeleine-albright moral-relativism liberalism leftism evil Christopher Hitchens
c437587 "Pettiness often leads both to error and to the digging of a trap for oneself. Wondering (which I am sure he didn't) 'if by the 1990s [Hitchens] was morphing into someone I didn't quite recognize", Blumenthal recalls with horror the night that I 'gave' a farewell party for Martin Walker of the television politics friendship diana-princess-of-wales martin-walker-reporter marty-peretz nightline presidency-of-bill-clinton sidney-blumenthal the-guardian the-new-republic university-of-oxford pettiness oxford argumentation mother-teresa bill-clinton journalism united-states england betrayal london new-york Christopher Hitchens