Making Exceptions

Daniel Larison has a characteristically insightful and thoughtful post up about the rush to double standards that the strong showing of Yisrael Beiteinu is provoking in people. Contra Greenwald, he argues that the real inconsistency is not that America won’t threaten to recall its ambassador to Israel if Avigdor Lieberman gets a cabinet post as it did to Vienna when Joerg Haider won 26% of the vote in Austria. Rather, it’s that people who are strong believers in the goodness of democracy seek to delegitimize and circumvent legitimate expressions of popular support for politics they find abhorrent.

Absolutely correct, though I suspect my conclusion is somewhat different from Daniel’s. I’m simply much more skeptical about the wisdom of “the people” in any given situation. To vulgarize Churchill: we’re for democracy not because it’s awesome, but because everything else sucks more.