Dems Deathbed Conversion to Missile Defense

Twenty years ago Democrats poured scorn on President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative. They called it Star Wars.

In the Clinton Administration Democrats forced a slowdown in missile defense research and development.

According to WorldNetDaily,

RNC research notes that during the Bush administration, Democrats have voted against missile defense nine times, while Chairman Mehlman notes, 'It is simply not credible that the same Democrats who've opposed missile defense for decades have in the month before the election discovered North Korea's long-range missile capability.'

And according to Sheryl Gay Sholberg in The New York Times missile defense is starting to get traction on the campaign trail.

Democrats, including [Senate candidate] McGavick’s opponent, Senator Maria Cantwell [D-WA], say they would support a missile defense program if one were proven effective.

So that’s all right.. After twenty years of opposition to missile defense research and development, Democrats now say they would support a system if it “were proven effective.”

It all reminds me of the two attitudes that Scientic American magazine used to have towards defense programs. It was opposed to effective systems on the grounds that they would be destabilizing. And it was opposed to ineffective programs on the ground that they were a waste of money.

And Democrats wonder why serious people don’t take them seriously.