Howard Dean recently engaged foreign policy neo-con Richard Perle in a debate on America's conduct abroad. The exchange was marred by disruptive elements in the audience who booed loudly when Perle spoke and, in the case of one man, even threw his shoe at Perle (see here for a rather low quality video of the episode).
This is, of course, how brown-shirted lefties do politics. No one fears the free dissemination of ideas more than does the Left. No one will do more to prevent ideas from being heard than will the Left. Like totalitarians everywhere, whether Stalinists, Nazis, or the Taliban, they don't trust people with the freedom to make up their own minds because they know that majorities will not sympathize with their bankrupt ideas. Thus views which clash with their own must be suppressed, even if it means making a fool of oneself by throwing one's shoes.
This helps us, perhaps, to understand why leftists seek to impose their will on the public by way of the judiciary rather than through legislatures. In order to have laws and policy enacted through the legislative branch they need to persuade a majority to agree with them. In order to have it enacted by judicial fiat they need only persuade a single judge. It's much easier to find one congenial jurist than to persuade half of a legislature, especially when one is saddled with ideas as impoverished as most of those held by the political Left.
The shoe-tossing incident wasn't the only strange moment on the video linked to above. At one point Dean criticizes the Bush administration for attacking Iraq but leaving Iran and North Korea unscathed. He seems to be implying that we should have attacked Iran and North Korea instead of Iraq. If we had focused our military assets on these two legs of the axis of evil, he seems to be saying, he would have endorsed the effort.
Can this be? Can the hero of the anti-war crowd have only opposed Operation Iraqi Freedom because we had simply chosen the wrong target? Of course not. To conclude that he would have supported the administration if it had taken on Iran instead of Iraq would be to impute to Mr. Dean a level of consistency and integrity that would be misplaced in his case. He's simply trying to score rhetorical points by sounding tough and hoping that his audience is comprised mostly of unthinking lunkheads like the shoe-thrower.
