THE 2006 ELECTION AND THE WAR IN IRAQ
THE 2006 ELECTION AND THE
WAR IN IRAQ: SOME LOOSE ENDS
by
Ken Eliasberg
Regarding elections and why Republicans lost the last one, and why they lose elections that they could otherwise have won—they do an unbelievably lousy job of public relations. This has always been a source of both curiosity and frustration to me. In my opinion, the Republicans are on the right side of almost every single principal which forms the backbone of the American way of life, but rarely do you ever hear a forceful, vigorous, and enlightened presentation of their views from any of their leading politicians. I remember but 2—Goldwater and, of course, the great communicator himself, Reagan. I once wrote Bush asking him how come Democrats do a much better job of marketing lies than Republicans do of telling the truth. After all, Republicans stand for personal responsibility (seeking to foster a feeling of independence among the electorate), a strong system of public education, a strong military, etc., etc. and yet they always seem timid in advancing their cause.
The Dems, on the other hand, advance the cause of dependency by constantly creating new entitlements—i.e. you don’t have to do it for yourself, just let the government do it for you—in order to buy votes. And they have been doing that for over 60 years, ever since Harry Hopkins posed the tax-and-spend approach to FDR. I suspect that during the New Deal era, they may have been inspired by good intentions (at least that was the assumption that I entertained during my years in the liberal wilderness)—an effort to get a nation off its back and on its feet. Since then, however, it has become a necessity—otherwise, without handouts, their base would desert them. I love it when Jesse Jackson asserts that he’s not looking for handouts, he just wants a hand up. No one—and I mean no one—has more vigorously sought and secured handouts than Jesse Jackson. Indeed, he has used handouts for him to prosper on the backs of his people. I’m not saying this merely to point out that Jesse Jackson is no more than your garden variety charlatan—which, indeed, he is. Rather, I’m saying it to point out both the bankruptcy and hypocrisy of the cries of the left.
This constant garbage about helping the “little guy” is just that—garbage! No one has done more to keep the little guy little than the Dems. Why? Because when he outgrows that label, he won’t vote for them. Jackson and the blacks are again a perfect illustration of this approach. What have the Dems done for the blacks—or as George Bush said on his visit to the Urban League, is your arrangement with the Democratic Party working out for you? What they—the Dems—have done for the Blacks are 2 things—welfare and quotas. Both convey the message that without our help, you can’t do it for yourself. And both have been incredibly harmful to the black community.
Welfare.- When Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the super liberal, rendered his report on problems in the black community in 1965, he noted that the single biggest problem was illegitimacy. At the time, the Black community had a 25% illegitimacy rate, i.e. 1 out of every 4 babies was born out of wedlock. Thanks to welfare, the black community had a 70% illegitimacy rate. Do handouts work? Yes, counterproductively!! When affirmative action was being considered, I distinctly remember (I was both a liberal and in D.C. at the time) Hubert Humphrey, on the floor of the Senate, saying that affirmative action does not mean quotas. Today, that’s exactly what it means. As I wrote to a black friend some time back, don’t you realize that everything the Dems do for you is telling you that you are incapable of doing it for yourself?
Now why do I mention this. Because the black community is the only reason that the Dems have not become the Whigs of the 20th and 21st centuries. Why? Because 90% of blacks vote Democrat, which means that every Democrat nominee for president starts out with an 8 to 9 million voter edge. If the blacks voted only 75% Democrat, the Dems are finished. That is why they pander to and patronize the black community. And that is why they suppress them with handouts. By the way, welfare reform—an agenda forced on Bill Clinton by the Republican Congress has been extremely successful, even though the Dems fought it all the way. Indeed the only angry resignation of a high ranking Clinton official (over a prolonged period of scandal, during which Clinton lied to everyone, including his entire cabinet)—Marian Wright Edelman’s husband—was over welfare reform. Do you think the Dems might admit that they were wrong—never happen. You see, being liberal means never having to say you’re sorry because you will never admit that you were wrong.
What does this have to do with the recent election. A great deal. It goes to the point of which party does a better job of getting their message out—no matter how decent, honest, or appropriate that message may be. And it is clearly the Dems who do a better job of it. Granted, they control the mainstream media, but that still does not explain the ineptitude of the Republican party in getting out its message, which is simply this—we don’t just want to help you, we want to help you help yourself. We want you to be indpendent (after all, isn’t that the backbone of the American dream?)!
Now to Iraq. One of the most idiotic suggestions I have seen was made by our good friend, Noam Chomsky—one shared by many in the academic airhead community. What might that be? Get out of Iraq, and turn the whole thing over to the United Nations. Now why, given the U.N.’s track record, would anyone in his right mind turn to the U.N for a matter of this magnitude? Could it be for their track record of competence and efficiency? Like say in the case of Rwanda (where 800,000 Tutsis were slaughtered by their neighbors, the Hutus while Kofi Annan and the U.N. did absolutely nothing)? Or how about Bosnia and Kosovo, where genocide was under way and the U.N. did nothing? Or how about Darfur, where genocide is still under way, and the U.N. does nothing? Or perhaps Iraq itself, where the U.N. issued 17 resolutions warning Sadam that he would get a “time out” if he did not behave himself? Maybe that’s it; all that was needed was another 16 or 17 resolutions.
Well, if not about their competency, how about their integrity? After all, that little thing about food-for-oil was just a small thing (and the reason perhaps why nothing happened after 17 resolutions and would not have happened with 1700 more). Maybe it’s the U.N.s moral standards that commend them in the case of an Iraqi solution. How about the sexual exploits of their emissaries in at least 3 or 4 countries? No, my friends, the U.N. will solve nothing, and only 3 types of people can be counted on to expect that it would: A complete moron, someone who has just landed on this planet from outer space, or someone equally out of touch with reality, like say a humanities professor (and, as I’m sure you have already observed, these categories are not mutually exclusive).
As far as the “serge” is concerned, we may need more troops; we certainly need a different approach—the rules of engagement must be changed to allow our troops to fight a war, not a policing action. Otherwise, don’t bother—20,000 or 200,000 more troops won’t make a darn bit of difference. Turn em loose or bring em home!!!!