Is consensus that important

John Kerry, who served in Vietnam, by the way, has attempted to walk a tightrope on the issue of the Iraq war.  He won't say that his vote for the war was a mistake, even though nearly everyone who wants to see Bush defeated this November opposes the war, often passionately.  Nor does he have the gonads to tell his party that the vote was right and that the war was right.  He saw what happened to Joe Lieberman.

Rather than taking the pro or con position, Kerry, who served in Vietnam, if you didn't know, has, instead, criticized President Bush for not obtaining a consensus in the United Nations before going to war against Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.  He brags about how he is prepared to mend fences with the "family of nations", whatever the hell that is, and how he will go to the United Nations.

Kerry, who served in Vietnam, believes as much of the American Left does, that achieving consensus is more important than doing the right thing.  American sovereignty and independence is problematic to some of the nations in Old Europe, and thus we need to avoid rubbing France, Belgium and Germany the wrong way.

No one on the left ever considers the possibility that France et al have their own reasons for opposing the United States.  The motives of these nations are never questioned.  Never mind that France has been trying to assert its power separate from the United States and NATO ever since the early 1960s.  We are to ignore that Germany would love to recapture a little of its lost glory as well.  We are also supposed to forget that the majority of the United Nations is made up of corrupt authoritarian regimes that vote against the United States most of the time anyway.

All of this is unimportant to John Kerry.  Did I mention that he served in Vietnam?  He and his leftist comrades are uncomfortable with a world where the United States is the lone superpower.  Madeline Albright, Clinton's Secretary of State, admitted this a couple of years ago.  Jimmy Carter, the smartest man to ever be a total failure as President, stated that if the United States wanted other nations to comply with disarmament proposals, then the United States should disarm.

The Left's idea of consensus is that if we agree with our enemies and fickle allies that we are the problem, and then engage in self loathing and penance, then all our enemies will stop hating us, and the terrorists will go away.  You see, consensus, according to the Left, can only be achieved when WE, the United States change our position.

It all goes back to the fact that the American Left has a difficult time conceiving of the United States as right, honorable and just.  They can't see us behaving better than most of those around us.  The Left looks at America and sees a Scarlet Letter on our forehead.  They see an America that needs to be knocked down a peg or two. 

That is what the Left means when they use the word "consensus".  Personally, I prefer that we do what is right, whether anyone agrees with us or not.