Whose 'Useful Idiots?'

Norm Geras notes a pathetic bit of omphaloskepsis in the London Review of Books. Geras is obviously an intellectual, but he's far too intelligent to be impressed by stuff like this:

A commitment to the abstract universalism of 'rights' - and uncompromising ethical stands taken against malign regimes in their name - can lead all too readily to the habit of casting every political choice in binary moral terms.

Remind you of any former Secretary of State's concerns about what the world might think of the "moral basis for our war on terror"?

The quote is from "Bush's Useful Idiots" by Tony Judt who proceeds from the assumption that Bush's foreign policy is self-evidently wrong and that any intellectual who agrees with it is a traitor to his class. Cover stories like this are why I dropped my subscription to the Atlantic Monthly. I just didn't see the point of paying for the privilege of being insulted. In fact, I've noticed this kind of thinking all over the place from liberals. They never argue from basic principles. They always start with the premise that Bush is stupid and evil, that he lied to get us into war in Iraq, and on and on.
Those who actually look at the record honestly, like Christopher Hitchens, come up with different conclusions, in spite of their leftward leanings.