Pink pander.

• Author: Malanowski, Jamie
• Position: Book Review

USEFUL IDIOTS: How Liberals Got It Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First by Mona Charen Regnery Publishing, $27.95

Useful Idiots, THE NEW BOOK BY conservative pundit Mona Charen that criticizes the left for 75 years of misjudgments about communism, takes its title from a phrase supposedly used by Joseph Stalin to characterize Soviet sympathizers in the West. The first big question that presents itself about this book is: Why now? The book contains little that's new; after all, it's not like the right has thought the left has been correct about communism all these years, nor is it the case that communism is about to rear its ugly head. Perhaps Charen merely looked at the titles in Regnery Publishing's expansive "Blame the Liberals" series of best-sellers, and realized that now would be an opportune time to snatch this niche. Charen tries to explain the timing by connecting liberals' errors about the late communist systems with their brand-new-but-familiar errors about Islamism. This happens to be the least convincing part of her argument. However, much of the rest--mysterious timing aside--is for a squishy liberal uncomfortably strong. "One of the most celebrated heroes of American history, Charles Lindbergh, saw his reputation shredded due to his failures to perceive the monumental evil of Nazism," she writes. "Yet American liberals who committed the identical sin vis-a-vis the Communists ... have paid no price in credibility for their appalling judgment."

That's a very good point. It's one most liberals have never come to grips with, one that's wrapped up with their problems formulating policies on defense and military force, which hobbles their ability to offer credible national leadership. Why did liberals so often find themselves giving the benefit of the doubt to a bunch of thugs? Why did we apologize for so much? Why did we excuse so much? Why did we ever think people like Khrushchev or Brezhnev had any credibility at all? In a book that is by Regnery standards pretty gloat-lite, Charen dredges up many examples of liberals who bent over backward to say good things--often transparently stupid good things--about communist regimes. She predictably dredges up quotes from all the lefties who hang like millstones around the necks of progressives, but she adds plenty of Kumbaya-sounding rhetoric from more level-headed types. And frankly, it's embarrassing to read George McGovern's romantic portraits of Castro, I.F. Stone's...