Quote Of The Day: Why Karl Rove Is Winning On The War Issue
Andrew Sullivan sees the Democrats as blowing it on the war issue:
The Democrats, alas, seem hopeless to me. Their ambivalence about the war before and during it makes them seem unreliable stewards of a fight we have no choice but to join. Their flirtation with withdrawal only reinforces this impression. But they do have an opening, if they only had the conviction. If a Democratic candidate emerged who promised to stick to the Iraq war to victory, but conduct it in a more aggresive, ethical and competent way than the current crew, Americans would be more than receptive. Such a position would also help them expose the scandalous incompetence in the White House, while not being vulnerable to charges of defeatism. It won’t happen, alas. And Rove will ruthlessly exploit the war for partisan gain, as he has from the beginning. He has no scruples. For him, national security is simply part of a political game. I should therefore break the news to my liberal and Democratic readers: Rove is winning this game for now. If you stick to your anti-war position, you are left with hoping for catastrophe, which a great political party should be better than. Until the Democrats confront this, the rest of us are left with the hope of McCain – but not much else.
The other part of it is that the same kind of vilification (which we decry here) of Democrats and others who question the war is being practiced by some Democrats on Democrats and others who either totally or partially support the war. In other words, the current Democratic Party’s trend seems to be towards adopting George W. Bush’s “you’re either with us or against us.” Go for those in your choir and forget about other potential choir members.
Part of the problem is that there used to be a time when politicians attempted to reach a vital goal by aggregating (versus aggravating) interests – skillfully piecing together a coalition so that a given side then has broad-based power to achieve a critical goal.
Just as Republicans seem to opt more now for simply mobilizing their party base, many Democrats have also decided that it’s best to talk to and mobilize (and in the case of blogs and some readers, only read) those that you already totally agree with.
So who will those OTHER potential allies go with — particularly if they are being demonized if they do not agree with every single stance of those Democrats who want an immediate pullout?
You get a sense — seeing how quickly Rove (literally within hours of the news coming out that he was not going to be indicted) has used the war issue to go on the offensive against the Democrats — that the Democratic Party is about to grab defeat from the jaws of victory (again). Oops! If the Democrats keep this up they could win a moral victory on Election Day.
Coalitions. Winning over large numbers of people. Trying to convince people who might be your allies to join with you. It all now seems oh so 20th-Century (except when the ballots are counted and you do a post-mortem and say we shoulda, we coulda..).
11 Responses to “Quote Of The Day: Why Karl Rove Is Winning On The War Issue”
Joe,
I agree with Andrew on this one, regarding what the Democrats could best do reg. the war in Iraq.
So who will those OTHER potential allies go with — particularly if they are being demonized if they do not agree with every single stance of those Democrats who want an immediate pull out?
You are completely right. If the Democrats want to stand a chance to win the coming elections they’d better not alienate, but work with people; whether they agree with every single point or not is irrelevant: to accomplish something in a democracy coalitions are mightly important.
What catastrophe? They are killing each other NOW! They are Shia and Sunni, they have always killed each other. They will do so whether we are there or not. We are unable or unwilling to pacify the region with MORE troops so we need to quit this crap and leave. If any other country wants to take up the cause then let them.
There is no “Democrat” mistake here. The “Mistake” is entirely the Bush administration’s mishandling of foreign policy in the most inept manor possible.
I think Mr. Sullivan needs to read Mr. Murtha. Especially this paragraph from the link below.
Murtha: “Today our military is unsurpassed in terms of strength, training and technology. We thought our military could do anything, but we found something we could not do. They are not a world police force. They are trained to destroy an enemy, which they do very well. But they are not trained to be policemen, or nation builders, or diplomats, and yet that is what they are being asked to do every day.”
had to shorten the link, but here it is:
http://tinyurl.com/s4srq
Rove won’t use the Iraq war unless it gets far better in the very near future. Its no different than Kerry using his vietnam experience. People have heard it before, and it doesn’t matter to them. Anyone remember the swipes taken at Bill Clinton for draft dodging, he got 8 years… in the white house. Using Iraq will get only the most strident supporters, it won’t bring in the moderate/independent vote. His strongest supporters may be needed to get a few congresscritters back in, but there are a few major ones he just can’t help, Delay and Santorum come to mind, by using Iraq as a battle cry. As I’ve said before, November is just about numbers, its about the repub leadership that may change. Throw out the far right bullies, and you just might have a good congress doing their job.
Read an analysis that explains how Iraq may be the focal point of a Republican October surprise…here:
http://www.thoughttheater.com
Here’s a tip folks–Wes Clark already IS staking out that position:
Now if some Senators would get on his team…
I’d go with Clark, but with a nice healthy slice of Murtha. We need to re-think our strategy, but keep the troops there.
I’d go with removing them from the duty of patrolling the Iraqi’s streets for them. The Iraqi army, and police force have had 2 1/2 years to belly up to the bar, I think they are damn well ready to patrol their own streets, thus ending the daily IED deaths to our troops. Our own troops get a little over 6 weeks of training by comparison the Iraqi’s should be freaking military supermen by now! So redeploy outside of the cities, but close enough to assist if the Iraq army hits a major snag, but stop handholding these guys, and make them prove they want their country back for a change.
Sorry, once again if the mushy middle is going to swoon ofver lockstep unity, they can just vote Republican again and get the goverment they deserve.
Americans assumed they could just invade, install their convicted embezzeler strong-man, steal some oil, and garrison up in the new Halliburton built ‘super-bases’.
That didn’t work out too well, so now its “Iraqization”. Shades of “Vietnamzation” anyone?
So not having learned a damn thing from Vietnam, here we are debating re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic.There are other voices that carry euqual weight here, but due to the “American exeptionalism’ blinders, apparenttly a lot of people can’t see that. The Army can’t be put under this pressure forever, and cracks are starting to appear for thosa who want to look.
We can still control our exit from this thing, but take advice from the likes of Sullivan and we will soon enough lose that option. You think leaving now on our terms will be bad for us? Getting run out or a general low grade munity from the Army such as happened after 68 will be infinantly worse.
The best thing to do is to fire the architects of this disaster. Lemmings look pretty organized as they go over the cliff, but I for one am not overly impressed with the end result of that. Andrew Sullivan has pretty much been wrong from day one. But go ahead and spoon up his sage advice.
I came over here from the left-wing(alleged) sites becasue I am genuinally intrested in what the “middle” thinks. The posters make me think we are doomed to keep turning corners forever, but the commenters give me hope that the ‘middle’ is starting to wake up enough to salvage something from all this.
Once again, if you want more of the same, marching in lock-step unity over a cliff, remember to vote Republican. If you would like some adult supervision, with some leaders who are capable of growing and learning, you know where to go. And it aint Karl Roves team.
It really is that simple.
Apparently Begala agrees with me.
Link
I nice contrast to silly Sully, and way more elequently put than a can muster.
a=I
In the words of the immortal Homer Simpson…DUUOOOHHH
Unfortunately what works best in developing policy-honest, open debate with consideration given to opposing points of view, doesn’t necessarily work well in the actual game of politics. Karl Rove understands this and that understanding is the source of his political genius and the continuing success of the Republican party. He is unmatched at turning around an unpopular, failed policy that is costing Americans dearly, and making it look like the source of our nation’s strength.
The Democrats, who at least ARE asking the questions that need to be asked to end this nightmare, need a single voice to prevail in November. I believe they should drop the timetable (seen as signalling weakness and defeat to our enemies) and keep calling attention to Iraq as a failed policy. They can go through the steps that need to be taken—involvement of regional powers, consensus from the international community, advisors to strengthen the infant government there, to get to eventual withdrawel. But they need to unite and they need more than a slogan if they want to win in November. I like Clark and Biden-they have experience with this issue, and are not afraid of being labelled as defeatists.
Andrew Sullivan’s Conclusion Couldnt Be More Wrong
He may be right that to Rove national security is simply part of a political game, but that doesnt mean that anyone else including Sullivan should treat as just a game or buy into Rove’s rules.
Its not just a game and opposing the war does not mean being left hoping for catastrophe. Sullivan should “be above” repeating such an obviously false claim. You could say the same thing about Rove’s position on the treatment of detainees and Sullivan’s opposition. Given the fact that Sullivans opposition to the administrations postion on the treatment of detainees should we conclude that his only hope is that the policy leads to catastrophe.
Is Sullivan left with hoping that the policies result in more torture, false confessions, and bad intelligence information resulting from the policies. Obviously not.
Is a person opposed to the Bush administrations environmental policies left only hoping for environmental castastrophe, absolutely not. Is a person opposed to the Bush administrations reckless fiscal polices left only hoping for economic melt down, no again. Its strange that Sulllivan should readily play into Rove’s game mentality – he should know better. Sullivans claim that being opposed to the war is tantamount to hoping for catastrophe is not only wrong headed but supports those extremists who try to assert that opposing the war is equivalent to hating America. Yes this is the game that Rove is playing, and people who help him with this game as Sullivan does with this statement are just helping him in his game that ends up hurting America.
Sullivan owes his readers a retraction and an apology.