Finally,  a loud and clear statement from liberals that Harry Truman would have approved — and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Hubert Humphrey, and yes, Robert Kennedy.

The Euston Manifesto is a public statement by British liberals in support of the War on Terror. The New York Sun writes today,

"We are democrats and progressives," it opened. "We propose here a fresh political alignment. Many of us belong to the Left, but the principles that we set out are not exclusive. We reach out, rather, beyond the socialist Left towards egalitarian liberals and others of unambiguous democratic commitment." The signers were particularly concerned with the alliances set up in the British anti—war movement with "illiberal theocrats" and defenders of suicide bombings.

There has never been any doubt about the "unambiguous democratic commitment" of Anglosphere conservatives, which goes back to Edmund Burke, John Locke and the American Founders. The Euston Manifesto is an opening by liberals to conservatives on the critical survival question of the day. It may be a ray of sunshine in a dark season.

Now some American liberals have also signed the Euston Manifesto, an act that takes considerable courage in the climate of fear and intimidation instilled by the Dr. Dementos of the blogs. It signals a willingness of some on the Left to move away from the destructive and self—destructive Bush hatred that has kept them boiling mad and blind to Islamic terror. Prime Minister Tony Blair's recent pamphlet for the UK Foreign Policy Centre may be part of the same movement.

This could be the start of something like the centrist alignment that kept the West going against Soviet and Chinese expansionism for half a century.

Or maybe not. A great deal depends upon the ability of sane people on the Left to push away the nut fringe. So far the Mad Left has controlled the ballgame, both here and in the  UK. As a result, the British Left is now in some disgusting company, like "Red Ken" Livingstone, the anti—Semitic demagogue Mayor of London, and Oily George Galloway, the MP who just asked for money on Syrian TV with the aim of buying up British newspapers to peddle his brand of Islamist—Socialist hatred. These creatures of the Brit—Left might as well be British fascists of a previous age; they are much more dangerous than the toothless outer fringes of the Right. For one thing, they have the BBC and the UK Guardian on their side.

The American Left has also been dominated by today's foaming—at—the—mouth Stalinoids; except that Stalin wielded a pretty mean whip and kept his CPUSA troops in line. Their successors today only compete to show who is wilder in denouncing the scapegoat of the moment —— President Bush, who also happens to be our strongest leader against Al Qaeda and the Khomeini cult. But like the Stalin Left, today's radicals purge dissenters and practice constant intimidation against their own side. Which is why Congressional Democrats are running scared.

Somehow, the word "neocon" has been smeared so much by now that the original meaning has been lost. The first neocons were leftwingers who were mugged by reality during the Cold War, and became conservatives, pretty much in the long Anglo—American tradition. Today's conservatives represent the tradition of evolving democracy in the Anglosphere much more accurately than the "liberals," who are intellectual descendants of a totalitarian philosophical tradition in Germany and France. But the most important thing today is survival: Not of some political alliance, but of the Free World.

Those who recognize the threat can make common cause. In the healthiest outcome, conservatives and liberals will continue to argue and sometimes fight. But we may agree on matters of survival. That would be a vital step forward. 

James Lewis   9 14 06