In a series of recent posts, Ken Parish has attacked critics of George Bush and his Administration as “anti-American”. The targets have included the Labor Opposition, columnists like Ken Davidson, and even Americans like Maureen Dowd.

A major problem with this claim is that most though not all, critics of the Bush Administration were, and are, favorably inclined to its predecessor, at least as far as foreign policy is concerned. Conversely, attacks on Bush pale into insignificance by comparison with the vitriol poured on Clinton by his domestic and foreign opponents. As an example, Ken cites a Bunyip post, which attacks Clinton, as the source for his claim that Davidson’s piece, which praises Clinton and relies primarily on American sources, is “anti-American”.

It seems as if Ken’s steadily hardening pro-war position has clouded his judgement on this one. Only a couple of months ago, Ken himself was writing

I’m not usually impressed by Maureen Dowd’s journalism. However, her New York Times piece on President Bush’s appointment of Henry Kissinger to”investigate” America’s preparedness and actions leading up to September 11 is an exception. It’s succinct, well written and compelling.  I must admit I had harboured mixed feelings about the Bush administration until now (despite Paul Krugman’s convincing demolition of the Bush tax cuts), but in my book a government that associates itself with this cynical, thoroughly evil old man has definitively characterised its own values and aspirations.

The fact is that, for many opponents of war with Iraq, including me, distrust of the current Administration is one of the main issues. I simply don’t believe that the stated motives for the war are the real ones, and therefore that the promised outcomes will actually be delivered. By stigmatising all criticism of Bush as “anti-American”, Ken is stacking the deck in favour of war.

A separate claim is that, even if criticism of the current US Administration is legitimate in general, it’s not legitimate for an Australian government or alternative government. The difficulty here is that it’s generally accepted that Howard is going to do whatever the US Administration tells him to in relation to Iraq, and that any Australian government would probably be in the same position. In these circumstances, to say that criticism of the Administration is off-limits for Australians is to accept the role of a client state. Maybe that’s realistic, but it’s also humiliating.