Kirkpatrick hit liberals for blaming America first

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Jeane J. Kirkpatrick's eyes twinkle at the mention of that August 1984 night at the Republican National Convention in Dallas when she eviscerated liberal Democrats as the "blame America first crowd."

"When Marxist dictators shoot their way into power in Central America, the San Francisco Democrats don't blame the guerrillas and their Soviet allies," Mrs. Kirkpatrick said of her party, which had just had its national convention in San Francisco. "They blame United States policies of 100 years ago. But then they always blame America first."

With those words, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations -- a long-time Democrat -- described the difference between President Reagan's determination to defeat communism and Democratic Party leaders' inclination to accommodate communism everywhere.

She accused Democrats of abandoning the anti-communism of liberals like Harry S. Truman, Hubert H. Humphrey and Henry "Scoop" Jackson for the accommodative tack of George McGovern, Jimmy Carter and the "new liberals" she tagged as the "San Francisco Democrats."

Mr. Reagan liked the "blame America first" refrain so much he used it against Democrats in his speeches in the fall 1984 campaign, winning a landslide victory.

"I worked very hard on that Dallas speech, and I believe the charges I made were defensible and that I could document them," Mrs. Kirkpatrick, 79, says as she sorts through old manuscripts in the living room of her Bethesda home. "At that time, there really were very widespread attacks on Ronald Reagan and the Reagan administration. I thought they were unreasonably harsh, and that's what I was referring to."

While foreign policy led her away from her former party, Mrs. Kirkpatrick also had domestic policy differences with Democrats.

"Democrat welfare policy not only was not working but was damaging to the people who were the supposed beneficiaries," she says. "I believe in self-reliance."

Her own current foreign policy views seem not quite to match either party's talking points.

"I don't think we have an obligation to engage in a new imperialism," says Mrs. Kirkpatrick, who adds that she is "skeptical of nation-building. It is extremely difficult for one nation to seriously remake another nation."