TMV NOTE: We often repost posts done the night before on the next day’s blog, to make sure they get maximum readership. The post below ran mid-day yesterday — but we’re reposting it today due to some of the important issues involved.
Perhaps President George W. Bush has seen some new polls that we haven’t seen yet about the impact of his White House suggesting that those who have questions about Iraq policy seek to undermine the military and don’t care about terrorists — and about the impact of video of showing GOPer who never spent a day in the military labeling a longtime veteran a “coward.”
Because today, there was a new line,: as reported by Terence Hunt, AP White House Correspondent:
BEIJING – After fiercely defending his Iraq policy across Asia, President Bush abruptly toned down his attack on war critics Sunday and said there was nothing unpatriotic about opposing his strategy.
“People should feel comfortable about expressing their opinions about Iraq,” Bush said, three days after agreeing with Vice President Dick Cheney that the critics were “reprehensible.”
The operative political word here is “abruptly.” Is that the reporters’ imagination? Is the media distorting what was said? How about this:
The president also praised Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., as “a fine man” and a strong supporter of the military despite the congressman’s call for troop withdrawal as soon as possible.
The question is whether this is a shift or not in real terms or just something on the record as GOPers go after Murtha and — just coincidentally — Murtha becomes the target of an ethics investigation in Congress that strangely was leaked to the press after he dared to break with the administration, making himself a potent “high concept” political symbol for the Democrats.
What’s interesting with this administration, is that in one sense it resembles the administration of Bill Clinton, who (with his then-bud and now nemesis Dick Morris’ help) could abruptly shift gears on a policy. The Bush administration can embrace and champion a value, then abruptly discard it. After days of some GOPers suggesting Murtha was essentially a man who wanted to undercut America and the troops and perhaps hop into bed with terrorists as he “cut and run,” now he’s being called a fine man.
What does this tell us? That the vibes Bush & Co are getting about the big House show produced by Duncan Hunter on Friday night perhaps didn’t play well with non-lockstep, non-GOP base audiences. And for good reason: as we’ve noted and Oxblog’s David Adesnik has noted, the video shown over and over again is of Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio) calling Murtha a coward, chaos in the House as Democrats were livid, and her coming back to retract her statement.
All that was missing as she recanted was House Speaker Dennis Hastert holding a gun to her pet puppy’s head.
The defenses given for Schmidt are (a) she’s new and didn’t know the ropes, (b) she was only delivering a message from a military person. But those are defense lawyer responses. Anyone who is HONEST with themselves (i.e. not saying something on a blog post or in a comment section to score a point for “their” side) knows that she may be new, but she knew her words were full-throttle and, if you watch the video, it’s clear she enjoyed and agreed with the words she delivered. If she truly felt they were out-of-line, she never would have uttered them.
PERSONAL NOTE: We get emails from people assuming that yours truly wants an immediate withdrawal or a timetable or is against the war. Just to set everyone straight. (Some of our critics apparently work for psychic hotlines, since they KNOW what we REALLY think because you see we never EVER express our views on this site..).
I’m one of the people who naively believed the original info used to justify the war and was not (and am not) a partisan of either party. Consider me a typical independent voter, with my support of the war a once-sturdy table.
Then consider that each leg of the table is being kicked from out from under it. Also consider that the WAY in which these legs are being kicked out is not pleasing to me. And also consider that I DO have a memory — so I remember each leg that supported my decision to support the war, what it was, and who put it there — and people insisting I don’t remember what I remember doesn’t cut it. When they insist a leg was never there, that means they have either bad memories themselves, a bad hangover, or may soon find their noses growing and Jiminy Cricket showing up at their doors.
I do not advocate an immediate withdrawal or a specific date for withdrawal at this point. But I do intently follow all of the SERIOUS (non-demonization) debate in Congress, in the news, and on thoughtful weblogs of the right and left. So, no, yours truly isn’t an anti-war critic and does not agree that Murtha’s idea is what we need to do right now. THAT being said:
As in the case of many independent voters, I totally reject any attempt to paint people on the right or left who question war policy aggressively as traitors who are trying to undermine the troops.
In fact, those highly critical on the right (we need more power and a better plan) and on the left (we need to withdraw) agonize over the situation the troops overseas are in. Those critical of war policy on the right and left love America just as much as anyone else does. Even as much as George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Duncan Hunter and Jean Schmidt. Maybe even as much as Ann Coulter.
We can’t pitch democratic values overseas if we don’t genuinely honor, cherish, practice and celebrate them over here — and voters should encourage politicians who don’t quite understand that to start updating their resumes ASAP for new jobs in the private sector in 2006 and 2008.
Voters of ALL kinds who believe it’s patriotic to seek and demand the best policy (on the right or left) need to look at politicos who suggest otherwise, go in the voting booth and basically utter Donald Trump’s famous words.
UPDATE: The Washington Post ALSO notes that Bush is now working to try to “tone down” the rhetorical fire storm sparked by him, Vice President Dick Cheney and GOPers in Congress by suggestions that those who question policy are somehow unAmerican:
After more than a week of increasingly harsh rhetoric, President Bush sought Sunday to tone down the raging debate on Iraq and offered an olive branch to the pro-military Democratic lawmaker condemned by the White House for turning against the war last week.
Summoning reporters between meetings with Chinese leaders here, Bush said he welcomed the political battle over the war as a “worthy debate” and rejected attempts to question the patriotism of those who oppose it. He also said he did not want the bitter conflict to degenerate into a partisan showdown.
People should feel comfortable about expressing their opinions about Iraq,” the president said. “I heard somebody say, well, maybe so-and-so is not patriotic because they disagree with my position. I totally reject that thought. This is not an issue of who’s [a] patriot and who’s not patriotic. It’s an issue of an honest, open debate about the way forward in Iraq.”
Without being asked, Bush praised Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), a decorated Vietnam War veteran and hawkish legislator who last week declared that the Iraq situation had become so bad that the United States needs to immediately withdraw troops.
“Congressman Murtha is a fine man, a good man, who served our country with honor and distinction as a Marine in Vietnam and as a United States congressman,” Bush said. “He is a strong supporter of the United States military. And I know the decision to call for an immediate withdrawal of our troops by Congressman Murtha was done in a careful and thoughtful way. I disagree with his position.”
So: Bush’s statement can’t be attributed to a media putting words in his mouth or misreporting what went on. He virtually leaped at a chance to make that statement on Murtha. Why? To try and defuse the political powder keg that he, his associates, and GOPers in Congress put out there.
UPDATE II: Knight-Ridder Newspapers also notes that this is a significant SHIFT:
WASHINGTON – President Bush softened attacks on war critics Sunday and his defense secretary signaled a coming troop drawdown, as the lawmaker at the center of a growing national debate on the Iraq war called for complete withdrawal by next November.
Speaking to reporters in Beijing during a state visit to China, Bush stepped back from his administration’s tough criticism of Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa. The White House and some GOP lawmakers engaged in personal attacks on the decorated Marine Corps veteran after his call Thursday to bring the troops home.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.