THIS summer in Crawford, the White House went to this playbook once too often. When Mr. Bush’s motorcade left a grieving mother in the dust to speed on to a fund-raiser, that was one fat-cat party too far. The strategy of fighting a war without shared national sacrifice has at last backfired, just as the strategy of Swift Boating the war’s critics has reached its Waterloo before Patrick Fitzgerald’s grand jury in Washington. The 24/7 cable and Web attack dogs can keep on sliming Cindy Sheehan. The president can keep trying to ration the photos of flag-draped caskets. But this White House no longer has any more control over the insurgency at home than it does over the one in Iraq.
More Rats
NRO’s Andrew McCarthy, NOT the one from "Weekend at Bernie’s" pictured here, rejects the Iraqi War now, too:
For what it’s worth, this is where I get off the bus. The principal mission of the so-called “war on terror” – which is actually a war on militant Islam – is to destroy the capacity of the international network of jihadists to project power in a way that threatens American national security. That is the mission that the American people continue to support.
As those who follow these pages may know, I have been despairing for a long time over the fact that the principal mission has been subordinated by what I’ve called the “democracy diversion” – the administration’s theory that the (highly dubious) prospect of democratizing Iraq and the Islamic world will quell the Islamists. (Aside: go ask Israelis if they think the fledgling “democracy” in Gaza and the West Bank – which is very likely to bring Hamas to power – promotes their national security.)
Now, if several reports this weekend are accurate, we see the shocking ultimate destination of the democracy diversion. In the desperation to complete an Iraqi constitution – which can be spun as a major step of progress on the march toward democratic nirvana – the United States of America is pressuring competing factions to accept the supremacy of Islam and the fundamental principle no law may contradict Islamic principles.
There is grave reason to doubt that Islam and democracy (at least the Western version based on liberty and equality) are compatible. But that is an argument for another day. The argument for today is: the American people were never asked whether they would commit their forces to overseas hostilities for the purpose of turning Iraq into a democracy (we committed them (a) to topple a terror-abetting tyrant who was credibly thought both to have and to covet weapons of mass destruction, and (b) to kill or capture jihadists who posed a danger to American national security). I doubt they would have agreed to wage war for the purpose of establishing democracy. Like most Americans, I would like to see Iraq be an authentic democracy – just as I would like to see Iran, Syria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, etc. be authentic democracies. But I would not sacrifice American lives to make it so.
Like Rats From A Sinking Ship
Militias are on the rise, the Iraqi Constitution is founded in Islamic law (making Iraq a theocracy, not a democracy), and we’re going to be in Iraq until 2009.
So much for the quick and easy victory, roses at our feet, etc.
Which probably explains why conservative blogger and smart guy Professor Bainbridge writes:
It’s time for us conservatives to face facts. George W. Bush has pissed away the conservative moment by pursuing a war of choice via policies that border on the criminally incompetent. We control the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives, and (more-or-less) the judiciary for one of the few times in my nearly 5 decades, but what have we really accomplished? Is government smaller? Have we hacked away at the nanny state? Are the unborn any more protected? Have we really set the stage for a durable conservative majority?
Meanwhile, Bush continues to insult our intelligence with tripe like this:
"Our troops know that they’re fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere to protect their fellow Americans from a savage enemy," Bush said in his weekly radio address. {Ed: Full text here}
"They know that if we do not confront these evil men abroad, we will have to face them one day in our own cities and streets, and they know that the safety and security of every American is at stake in this war," he said.
I guess that’s all he has left. After all, if Iraq’s alleged WMD programs were the casus belli, why aren’t we at war with Iran and North Korea? Not to mention Pakistan, which remains the odds-on favorite to supply the Islamofascists with a working nuke. If Saddam’s cruelty to his own people was the casus belli, why aren’t we taking out Kim Jong Il or any number of other nasty dictators? Indeed, what happened to the W of 2000, who correctly proclaimed nation building a failed cause and an inappropriate use of American military might?
The Professor goes on to talk about Bush’s sad excuses for the Iraq War:
The trouble with Bush’s justification for the war is that it uses American troops as fly paper. Send US troops over to Iraq, where they’ll attract all the terrorists, who otherwise would have come here, and whom we’ll then kill. This theory has proven fallacious. The first problem is that the American people are unwilling to let their soldiers be used as fly paper. If Iraq has proven anything, it has confirmed for me the validity of the Powell Doctrine.
Essentially, the Doctrine expresses that military action should be used only as a last resort and only if there is a clear risk to national security by the intended target; the force, when used, should be overwhelming and disproportionate to the force used by the enemy; there must be strong support for the campaign by the general public; and there must be a clear exit strategy from the conflict in which the military is engaged.
Powell based this strategy for warfare in part on the views held by his former boss in the Reagan administration, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, and also on his own experience as a major in Vietnam. That protracted campaign, in Powell’s view, was representative of a war in which public support was flimsy, the military objectives were not clear, overwhelming force was not used consistently, and an exit strategy was ill defined.
Sounds a lot like Iraq doesn’t it? Public support for the war is sliding.
Now, he’s right about all of this of course. But one wonders where voices like his were a year ago.
Friday Random Ten
- Roam – The B-52s
- Look Mama – Howard Jones
- Honeysuckle Rose – A’int Misbehavin’ (Original Cast)
- Feel Like Makin’ Love – Bad Company
- Addicted To Love – Robert Palmer
- Satisfaction – Rolling Stones
- Time For Livin’ – The Association
- Adult Afraid Of The Night – Lauren Christy
- I Never Wanted To Love You – March of the Falsettos (Original Cast)
- Dream Weaver – Gary Wright
Why Is Today Different From Any Other Day?
Bush is #1!
Today he passes Reagan’s record for most vacation days! Yaaaay! It took Reagan, who was much older, 8 years to reach his personal best of 355 days. Bush did it in only 4 years, 7 months!
And his August vacation isn’t half over yet! [Source]
Now watch this drive!
Frist Gets On His Knees And Begs Forgiveness From The Religious Right
Frist voices support for ‘intelligent design’
Senator encourages teaching of faith-based theory alongside evolution
Uh-oh. Someone’s upset he wasn’t invited to Justice Sunday II.
Echoing similar comments from President Bush, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said “intelligent design” should be taught in public schools alongside evolution.
Frist, a Republican from Tennessee, spoke to a Rotary Club meeting Friday and told reporters afterward that students need to be exposed to different ideas, including intelligent design.
“I think today a pluralistic society should have access to a broad range of fact, of science, including faith,” Frist said.
“Faith” isn’t science OR fact. It has personal value, but let’s not lie about what it is.
Frist, a doctor who graduated from Harvard Medical School, said exposing children to both evolution and intelligent design “doesn’t force any particular theory on anyone.
Maybe Harvard Medical School should also teach the healing power of prayer, like “laying of the hands” and so on. Because that’s what you want when you are wheeled into the emergency room, someone like this (RealMedia video).
We, Robots
Shorter John Ponderhatz: "I’ve written 12,000 words on a subject I don’t understand, and for some reason, robots are attacking me and pointing out my errors."
I’m not following the Able Danger scandal much, which is why I don’t write about it.
If John doesn’t like robots, he should do the same. Robots thrive on ignorance.
Republicans Nervous, And With Good Reason
The NY Times:
A stream of bad news out of Iraq, echoed at home by polls that show growing impatience with the war and rising disapproval of President Bush’s Iraq policies, is stirring political concern in Republican circles, party officials said Wednesday.
They are referring to Republican party officials, as in:
"There is just no enthusiasm for this war,” said Representative John J. Duncan Jr., a Tennessee Republican who opposes the war. “Nobody is happy about it. It certainly is not going to help Republican candidates, I can tell you that much.”
Representative Wayne T. Gilchrest, a Maryland Republican who originally supported the war but has since turned against it, said he had encountered “a lot of Republicans grousing about the situation as a whole and how they have to respond to a lot of questions back home.”
***
Grover Norquist, a conservative activist with close ties to the White House and Mr. Bush’s senior adviser, Karl Rove, said: “If Iraq is in the rearview mirror in the ‘06 election, the Republicans will do fine. But if it’s still in the windshield, there are problems."
Why the sea change? Ezra Klein says it is partly because of Cindy Sheehan, partly because of the Iraqi Constitution deadline failing, partly because the bad news from Iraq (the death toll rate for August is the worse it’s been since April 2004, sixteen months ago).
Maybe so, but I prefer Shakespeare: “the truth will out!”
This Is My 1000th Post On This Blog
The first post was dated January 21, 2004, almost 19 months ago.
I guess I should say something profound, or give a retrospective of the blog and how it’s developed, or thank the people who visit (both of them), or something.
But instead, I think I will publish one of my favorite photos:
“Let ‘Em Burn!”
That’s what you’re likely to hear from the Christian conservatives, when they read this:
An experimental therapy that uses skin cells grown from an aborted fetus successfully healed severe burns in eight children, sparing them the need for skin grafts, according to a study published today.
The treatment led to the regrowth of essentially normal skin on second- and third-degree burns in about two weeks, according to the report by a Swiss research team. The scarring and tissue contraction seen after many burns did not occur, and dressing changes were easier and less painful, the researchers said.
The fetal tissue promotes growth of the patient’s own skin cells rather than becoming incorporated into the recipient’s skin as a true "graft." Further, it appears that a piece of fetal skin smaller than a postage stamp could be used to produce enough cells to treat hundreds of patients.
"The results were sort of unexpected. . . . These constructs seem to work as a biological Band-Aid, promoting spontaneous healing of the patient," said Patrick Hohlfeld of University Hospital of Lausanne, who was one of the researchers.
The study will appear in a future edition of the Lancet and was published online today. […]
So Where Are The Reporters?
On–air admission from Chris Matthews:
MATTHEWS: What I keep doing here is asking people on and off camera who come on this program, high-ranking officers, enlisted, former officers. I get sometimes, not all the time, two different versions, the version they give me on the air and the version they give me the minute when we’re off the air.
The version they give me when we’re on the air is gung-ho, we’re doing the right thing, everything is moving along. The version they give me off the air is, Rumsfeld is crazy. There aren’t enough troops over there. We’re not taking this seriously enough, or, we shouldn’t be there, sometimes.
Now, I don’t doubt what Matthews is saying is true. But the question is: what will it take for the media to stop being a passive forum for lies? They are so interested in protecting sources and not ruffling feathers, and getting guests, that they forgot their whole raison d’etre: to inform the public of reality.
Ann Coulter: The Gift That Keeps On Giving
I love her:
To expiate the pain of losing her firstborn son in the Iraq war, Cindy Sheehan decided to cheer herself up by engaging in Stalinist agitprop outside President Bush’s Crawford ranch.
I don’t think she went to Crawford to "cheer herself up". But note that we’re only one sentence in, and we have more amature psychology from the smear merchants.
It’s the strangest method of grieving I’ve seen since Paul Wellstone’s funeral. Someone needs to teach these liberals how to mourn.
There’s only one way to do things in the land of the free, you see. Ann’s way.
Call me old-fashioned,
Oh, I can think of many things to call you, Ann, but "old-fashioned" isn’t one of them.
but a grief-stricken war mother shouldn’t have her own full-time PR flack. After your third profile on "Entertainment Tonight," you’re no longer a grieving mom; you’re a C-list celebrity trolling for a book deal or a reality show.
Interestingly, on Ann’s website (as it is now), this sentence appears about four inches below an advertisement for Ann’s new book. Troll.
We’re sorry about Ms. Sheehan’s son, but the entire nation was attacked on 9/11. This isn’t about her personal loss.
Well, you see, Ann, it is about personal loss, for Sheehan.
America has been under relentless attack from Islamic terrorists for 20 years, culminating in a devastating attack on U.S. soil on 9/11
. It’s not going to stop unless we fight back, annihilate Muslim fanatics, destroy their bases, eliminate their sponsors and end all their hope. A lot more mothers will be grieving if our military policy is: No one gets hurt!
Fortunately, the Constitution vests authority to make foreign policy with the president of the United States, not with this week’s sad story.
Damn. And I so wanted Bush to appoint Sheehan as Secretary of State.
But liberals think…
When you see the phrase "lilberals think" coming from a conservative, you know that the next words are going to be pure gold.
…that since they have been able to produce a grieving mother, the commander in chief should step aside and let Cindy Sheehan make foreign policy for the nation.
Bingo!
As Maureen Dowd said, it’s "inhumane" for Bush not "to understand that the moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute."
I’m not sure what "moral authority" is supposed to mean in that sentence,…
Ann Coulter, who advocated bombing the New York Times building, struggles with moral authority in general.
…but if it has anything to do with Cindy Sheehan dictating America’s foreign policy, then no, it is not "absolute." It’s not even conditional, provisional, fleeting, theoretical or ephemeral.
I’m not quite sure why Ann thinks that Cindy Sheehan is applying for a job with the Bush Administration, but I wish she would get off it.
The logical, intellectual and ethical shortcomings of such a statement are staggering. If one dead son means no one can win an argument with you, how about two dead sons? What if the person arguing with you is a mother who also lost a son in Iraq and she’s pro-war? Do we decide the winner with a coin toss? Or do we see if there’s a woman out there who lost two children in Iraq and see what she thinks about the war?
Mmmmm. Who was it who just tried to out-grieve Cindy Sheehan by pointing out that thousands died on 9/11?
Dowd’s "absolute" moral authority column demonstrates, once again, what can happen when liberals start tossing around terms they don’t understand like "absolute" and "moral."
Mmmmm. Who was it who just said she doesn’t understand what "moral authority" means when used in a sentence?
It seems that the inspiration for Dowd’s column was also absolute. On the rocks.
Get it? Because Dowd is a drunk! What a card!! Ann should do the Catskill circuit.
Liberals demand that we listen with rapt attention to Sheehan…
And those liberals are…?
…but she has nothing new to say about the war. At least nothing we haven’t heard from Michael Moore
Yes. It’s the same argument. Unlike the neo-cons who keep shifting the reasons why we invaded Iraq in the first place.
These arguments didn’t persuade Hillary Clinton
But they have persuaded a majority of Americans, who now believe we wrong to get into Iraq.
So Ann’s point, I guess, is that if people were fooled once, they should shut up and continue to be fooled.
But now liberals demand that we listen to the same old arguments all over again
I don’t make any demands at all. In fact, I’m willing to bet that Coulter of her own volition has probably heard and read more about Sheehan than I have.
…not because Sheehan has any new insights, but because she has the ability to repel dissent by citing her grief.
Well, she doesn’t have that ability. Witness your own column.
On the bright side, Sheehan shows us what Democrats would say if they thought they were immunized from disagreement. Sheehan has called President Bush "that filth-spewer and warmonger." She says "America has been killing people on this continent since it was started" and "the killing has gone on unabated for over 200 years." She calls the U.S. government a "morally repugnant system" and says, "This country is not worth dying for." I have a feeling every time this gal opens her trap, Michael Moore gets a residuals check.
Hahahaha! Becauase Michael Moore is a liberal, too! Get it?
No, neither do I. Someone call Coulter’s agent and cancel that Catskills thing.
Evidently, however, there are some things worth killing for. Sheehan recently said she only seemed calm "because if I started hitting something, I wouldn’t stop ’til it was dead." It’s a wonder Bush won’t meet with her.
Yeah, it would be an embarrassment if a rough-and-ready brush-clearing Texan got beaten up by a frail, emtionally-weary woman.
Of course, hiding from her because he’s afraid of getting the crap beat out of him is much more of an embarrassment. Kinda like the way he handled service in Vietnam, I suppose.
Lessons Not Learned
Paul Begala is talking here about the smears of the right wing against Sheehan (although it is hard to tell). He’s nailed it:
It seems to me the American people never really forgave the Democrats for being right about Vietnam.
The left was right, of course, about Vietnam. Even my CNN colleague Bob Novak, who was extraordinarily hawkish on Vietnam, now admits America should have pulled out years before we did.
And yet, despite being right, the left lost politically when America lost militarily. Why? And what can we who oppose President Bush’s war in Iraq learn from that?
One of the grave sins of the anti-Vietnam War movement was, I think, a conflation of the conflict with the combatants. Instead of focusing their fire and their ire on the commander in chief, too many liberals wound up blaming the conscripts who so bravely fought Mr. Nixon’s war. This was a tragic error. First, and most important, because decent, honorable men were smeared. Some were called "baby killer." Others were tainted by popular media that depicted them as unstable.
So one important lesson of Vietnam is, the first casualty of an unwise and unjust war are the American troops called on to fight it. Their service should be honored.
Second, what we political consultants call the "optics" matter. The popular memory of the anti-war movement calls to mind (even for those of us too young to clearly recall it) the indelible image of young Americans burning the American flag. Cops were called "pigs." Cherished American icons were trashed.
It seems to me the new anti-war movement has learned these lessons well. And it is the pro-war right that is repeating the mistakes of the past.
Read the whole thing.
The Chickenhawk Counterargument
TBogg examines one neo-con’s attempt to defuse the chickenhawk meme:
Rusty at The Jawa Report attempted a statistical study on chickenhawkedness and didn’t get enough reponses to make a valid judgement…so he went and make a wholly unsupportable one anyway:
An oft heard accusation is that of chickenhawk being leveled at supporters of the Iraq War who have no prior military service. Bloggers with no prior military service are called members of the 101st Fighting Keyboardists on almost a daily basis by Markos Mulitsas’ Daily Kos, himself a veteran of the U.S. Army. The phrase is used to shorten discussion about the war by making a personal attack and delegitimizing the person’s credibility. It is easy for you to be for the war when you are not fighting it, is the crux of the chickenhawk argument.
The Right has no identity phrase to delegitimize left-wing bloggers’ anti-war stance equivelant to chickenhawk. But we on the right often resort to other personal attack tactics. Although we have no phrase to wrap the idea in, there is a glaring suspicion to many on the Right that many on the Left never served in the military because they hate it and our soldiers. They are against the Iraq War, we think, because they are against all war and the military men that fight them.
[…]While the N of the survey is too small to produce a statistically significant regression model, there are a few noteworthy observations from the initial round.
Of the 11 bloggers who responded from the Left, 2 of them–or 18.2%–had been in the military.
If you just look at the top 12 bloggers from the Right, none of them had served in the U.S. military.
However, of the top 21 bloggers who responded from the Right, 6 of them–or 28.6%–had been in the military.
The further down the TTLB Ecosystem rankings you go among bloggers on the Right, the more likely they will have been to have served in the military. The further up the TTLB Ecosystem Traffic Rankings you go among bloggers on the Left, the more likely they will have been to have served in the military.
So, among the top bloggers on both the Left and Right, only a minority have ever served in the military. Are bloggers on the Left draft-dodging haters of the military? There’s no evidence to suggest that. Are bloggers on the Right warmongering chickenhawks eager to send others to war but not face that risk themselves? There is certainly no evidence to suggest that either.
Well, there you have it, although the logic and conclusion seems pitched at that level where only dogs and chickenhawks can hear it.
Can Dish It Out But . . .
It has been 10 days since I first posted on Cindy Sheehan, and after sticking my neck out and taking massive amounts of ongoing abuse and ridicule for giving her the scrutiny she deserves, I am more than happy to let others pick up the slack.
Then she links to others who continue continue slamming Sheehan
Yes, Michelle. Smearing grieving mothers is, to quote Bush, "hard work".
Compare — Cindy Sheehan, on Wednesday:
The right wingers are really having a field day with me. It hurts me really badly, but I am willing to put up with the crap, if it ends the war a minute sooner than it would have.
NOTE: Cindy actually has left Crawford, to attend her ill mother who had a massive stroke. She hopes to return soon.