John Leo makes an excellent point in the most recent edition of US News & World Report. The immediate context is Andrew Sullivan's endorsement of John Kerry for President:
Many of the doubts that hover over Sullivan's case for Kerry are rooted in the value system widely shared among Democrats: Most people are basically good; wars are caused not by evil motives but by misunderstandings that can be talked out; conflict can be overcome by more tolerance and examining of our own faults or by taking disputes to the United Nations. As a personal creed, these benign and humble attitudes are admirable. As the foundation of a policy to confront terrorists who wish to blow up our cities, they are alarming.
This is exactly the way that I used to think. Now I refer to it as the the Everything-I-Need-to-Know-I-Learned-in-Kindegarten version of foreign policy.
