Bad Political Theatre
BAD POLITICAL THEATRE: PREPARING THE DEMOCRATIC BASE FOR GOOD NEWS IN IRAQ
by
Ken Eliasberg
The Democratic Party has become the Party that actually prays for bad news—from any corner, but preferably from Iraq—and when it looks like they’re not going to get it, they’ll invent it. Ergo, George Bush is the cause of the bridge collapse in Minnesota. It gets sillier and sillier, and more despicable and more despicable—that any group, let alone an allegedly respectable group of Americans, would very much like to see (no, need to see) a catastrophe visited on their country. However, that is exactly where the Democratic Party finds itself today—praying for any sort of catastrophe and then trying to use it for propaganda against George Bush and the war in Iraq (which as at least one Democrat (Lieberman), observed is just another front on the war on terror).
A hint of the Dem’s difficulties in connection with good news from Iraq was revealed in an interview that House Majority Whip, James Clyburn (of South Carolina) gave to Dan Balz and Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post (which is aired on YouTube) in which Clyburn stated that a positive report from General David Petraeus in September would be “ a real big problem for us” (the Dems, that is). While left-wingers like MediaMatters tried to spin this statement to soften its implications—i.e. that the Dems are invested in defeat—the implications are pretty clear—THEY ARE!!
Worse yet for Dems, there is every reason to believe that Petraeus’s report is going to be quite positive. Why? Because, contrary to the Dem’s propaganda, as well, apparently, as their fervent hopes, things have definitely been going better in Iraq (although you might not know it from the manner in which it is being reported by the left-wing media—which is almost all of the media). Although even here, there is great news from, of all places—the very heart of the left-wing media, i.e., the New York Times. In a July 30th op-ed piece entitled A War We Just Might Win, 2 hard core lefties, Michael E. O’hanlon and Kenneth M. Pollack (both Brookings Institute scholars) produced an almost glowing piece on what they observed in their recent 8-day visit to the area. They observed that “[V]iewed from Iraq, where we just spent eight days meeting with American and Iraqi military and civilian personnel, the political debate in Washington is surreal. The Bush administration has over four years lost essentially all credibility. Yet now the administration’s critics, in part as a result, seem unaware of the significant changes taking place.” And, again, it is important to emphasize that these are “lefties” ; they are not Republicans and certainly not Bush supporters. Some of you may remember Pollack. He figured prominently in the first serious column I wrote on Iraq some time back. Why? Because, after working for Bill Clinton, he wrote a book on the Iraqi situation entitled The Gathering Storm, in which he clearly stated that invading Iraq was absolutely the right move. His later disenchantment was not so much a departure from that conclusion as an expression of his dissatisfaction with the way the war, once started, was being waged. And, on this score, I fully agree—“the surge” should have started 3 or 4 years ago.
How will the Dems try to deal with a positive Petraeus report? Either by ignoring it entirely—which will be darn near impossible to do - trying to rationalize (spin) it in some nonsensical manner, or to somehow discredit Petraeus as an unbelievable tool of the Administration (whose commander in chief he serves). You have already seen a suggestion of this despicable practice in the local effort to spin General Odierno’s statements on the diminishing casualties in the theatre. I find that effort both idiotic and, as stated, despicable—the suggestion that our military men are not to be believed because of somehow being compromised by the very fact that they serve in the military and are thus pawns in the political efforts of the administration. Is there no low to which the Dems will not sink in their effort to produce a defeat in Iraq (or the eventual destruction of the country that pays them all too handsomely)??
Apparently, the Dems know that good news is coming out of Iraq, and that the Petraeus report will reflect that fact. What to do? Simple, switch gears and point to the cost of the war and the alternative manner in which those dollars could be spent (you don’t think a Dem is going to suggest saving money, do you?) i.e. for repairs to our aging infrastructure. Taking a page out of their Katrina playbook, the Dems are jumping on the collapsed Minnesota bridge situation. Their line of attack is that if George Bush wasn’t wasting so much time, energy, and money on waging the war in Iraq, we could devote all of those resources to infrastructure repair. Hold on! Forgetting for the moment both the mendacity and the stupidity of such an assertion, what the hell were the Dems doing for the last 40 or 50 years? Do you recall seeing any sort of infrastructure outrage during the Clinton administration? Or, more to the point, did you see any effort by Clinton to fix our bridges or the levees in New Orleans? Of course not, Clinton was too busy redefining the plain meaning of the English language as he sought to explain his deplorable conduct to the American people. The point here is that our infrastructure has been deteriorating for some time; it didn’t just happen over night. Moreover, in the case of the collapse of the bridge, there appeared to be no clue that this was coming. Finally, and more to the point, our infrastructure needs and our national security concerns are mutually exclusive, and the resolution of one problem is in no way an inhibiting consideration in dealing with the other.
The O’hanlon/Pollack piece is a ringing endorsement of progress; it is not, I readily concede, a guarantee of victory. And, while I intend to go back and deal more emphatically with the wisdom of our Iraqi venture, let me make it perfectly clear that I am not, nor have I ever been, certain of either our prospects for victory in Iraq (if victory means an Iraqi democracy) or, on the larger question, of stability in the Middle East. Why not? Because I am not convinced that Islam and Democracy are compatible arrangements. That said, I am open to, and hopeful of, being proved wrong. Please do not misunderstand, there is no doubt in my mind that invading Iraq and deposing Saddam Hussein (a vicious, murderous dictator) was absolutely the right thing to do. I have, however, serious issues with how the war was waged after Saddam was toppled—at least up until the time of the surge, but, again, I have no issues with the idea of embarking on the war in the first place.
In all events, we are at war and we have to win it, and we can win it if the Dems would stop obstructing our war effort, thereby giving aid and comfort to our enemy—an enemy sworn to our destruction. We cannot cede Iraq to the terrorists; such an effort would not only assure a blood bath of catastrophic proportions, but, more to the point, would only place us at a greater disadvantage in our war on terror (terrorists, if you like). Iraq would rapidly deteriorate into a Taliban-like Afghanistan, only this time with an abundance of oil—thus furthering our efforts to fund our suicide-by-petro-dollars approach to the Middle East, in general, and our energy policy, in particular. Meanwhile, prepare yourself for a barrage of left-wing propaganda, seeking to either rationalize or divert our attention from good news in Iraq—because it’s coming!!