A Weblog of Centrist Voices in American Politics
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A Weblog of Centrist Voices in American Politics | |
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November 15, 2005The Empire Strikes Back...New GOP commercial on the historical revisionism of the Democrats, performed by the DNC Players themselves. Effective. Methinks Rove had a hand in this one. (Hat tip to Instapundit.) Posted by Tully at November 15, 2005 03:02 PMComments
Effective but it will only piss off the Dems more (I bet). Posted by: c3 at November 15, 2005 03:16 PMJust remember...they had no power to take the country to war. They were just innocent bystanders trying to do what George W. Bush told them to do. In fact, their staff members were so busy, they (the staffers) didn't even have time to read the intelligence and relay it to them (the Congressmen)--they (the Congressmen) had to sit in on a conference call with Dick Cheney (while they were playing solitaire) and let him tell them what the intelligence said. In the end, we all know Congress has no power. They are simply the American version of the House of Lords. All power lies with the President. It's all his fault! If he had only learned how to read at Yale, he could have read the reports for himself. Instead, he was forced to rely on Dick Cheney and his Whyoming public school education to decipher complex intelligence reports. Posted by: AR at November 15, 2005 03:46 PMSorry, I don't get it. First, where's this 4 minute commercial going to air? And 2nd, how does it combat the growing impression that war support was based on a misleading sale of intelligence (leaving aside whether that misleading was intentionally done). Not saying this impression is necessarily correct, just asking how does this commerical combat the growth of that impression? And most of all, how does this attempt to diffuse the place where the buck stops function? Bush, as commander in chief is the one who chose these actions. So I don't think this does anything to restore the public's trust in Bush...I'm not confident in the people's patient to examine the finer points, I think they just see us engaged in a very a costly war that turned out to be unwarranted basedon the most important rationale given, and want to hold responsible the guy who was in charge when the call was made. It's really that simple. now you can argue thet there's plenty of blame to go around from congress to past administrations to the CIA and so on, but I just don't think it works that way when it comes to the public expecting accountability. If the plan had worked quickly and fabulously well, there'd have been no day of reckoning. But that's not exactly how it has turned out. Posted by: bk at November 15, 2005 03:49 PMHere's the thing: public dissatisfaction is not a fixed quantity distributed among finite repositories. The public is completely capable of adjusting down their views of all the Democrats shown in this thing without concurrently adjusting up their view of the President. So at best, Bush can drag some of these people down. And that only if the public won't buy the notion that these other people were either duped or unwilling accomplices.That may be a hard sale given that the admin and its defenders have stressed how uncooperative the democrats have been. I mean, isn't this criticism of Bush coming from those who've been classed as "anti-war?" Now the admin's story is that the criticism is invalid because the opposition was just as anti-Hussein as Bush in the past? I don't see it. I think the biggest problem Bush has here is that he's trying to use reason to combat a growing public dissatisfaction that's a largely visceral negative response to the Iraq war. It's a feeling not founded in reason, and may well not be accessible TO reason. If Bush wants to fight this impression, he can't do it by showing a parade of past statements, he has to show us why we need to win, and that we're winning, or at least making solid progress. Posted by: bk at November 15, 2005 04:20 PMOf course, many people say (I'm not saying that this is my opinion...just passing it along.) that if the enemy felt that the country were united in its determination, we would be in a different place right now. But, with Democrats (and Republicans) bucking every step of the way, it's not exactly easy to present a unified front to the rest of the world, is it? Why is Bush held to a different standard than Congress? Yes, he made the final decision to go to war--only after he received Congressional authorization. Perhaps when legislation is introduced that specifically names each member that voted for war and expresses a universal admittance of error, then, and only then, does Congress have the right to throw stones at the President. Posted by: AR at November 15, 2005 04:21 PMBrian, you are absolutely right that a better case needs to be made for why we are doing this and what the plan is. I'm in absolute agreement with you there. Posted by: AR at November 15, 2005 04:24 PMTo me this is the 2nd chapter of the great unravelling. The first being Powell's statement a year and a half ago that some of the intelligence was deliberately misleading. The current chapter started this summer and will no doubt continue into the primary season. The current lie by the president is that the Congress had the same intelligence as the Bush himself. This is totally false. The Congress was not delivered the same numerous caveats that Bush was. Right now there's a move afoot in the Senate to obtain the PDB's inre to the intelligence in Iraq. This of course is being resisted by the White House. uh, lesseee, if they had the same intelligence wouldn't the WH release the contents to the Congress? even in secret? Just to confirm that everyone was on the same page of course. Posted by: Marcus at November 15, 2005 06:31 PMOf course, many people say (I'm not saying that this is my opinion...just passing it along.) that if the enemy felt that the country were united in its determination, we would be in a different place right now. But, with Democrats (and Republicans) bucking every step of the way, it's not exactly easy to present a unified front to the rest of the world, is it? I'm glad that's not your opinion, Abel; I'd hate to see someone I like and respect endorse the idea of the repeal of the First Amendment in favor of dictatorship. Of course, W himself has said "A dictatorship would be much easier...as long as I'm the dictator.", but I'll be nice for once and go along with the idea that he's joking. I wonder where all these new found converts to Presidentail inviolability were the last time the U.S. bombed Saddam, which was December of 1998. Of course, back then the Congress was occupied with a far more important and urgent matter than terrorism, but the generous souls gave then President Clinton a whole 24 hours worth of respite. Perhaps if they'd paid more attention to Saddam and less to a stained dress, then there would have been no need to invade Iraq five years later. ;-) Posted by: Blue Jean at November 15, 2005 07:14 PMThis is the mandate of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence : Created pursuant to S.Res. 400, 94th Congress: to oversee and make continuing studies of the intelligence activities and programs of the United States Government, and to submit to the Senate appropriate proposals for legislation and report to the Senate concerning such intelligence activities and programs. In carrying out this purpose, the Select Committee on Intelligence shall make every effort to assure that the appropriate departments and agencies of the United States provide informed and timely intelligence necessary for the executive and legislative branches to make sound decisions affecting the security and vital interests of the Nation. It is further the purpose of this resolution to provide vigilant legislative oversight over the intelligence activities of the United States to assure that such activities are in conformity with the Constitution and laws of the United States. If the intelligence given to the president was not correct these are the people who hold accountability. The members of this committee had access to all the same information available to the president and then some. The members of this committee were derilict in their dutys and some of them are the ones claiming the president "lied" to them. I wish we would begin holding the Congress responsible for its actions instead of living in a fantasy world where the president is omnipotent and all powerfull and if something was not perfect it must have been a deliberate act. Posted by: Bernie at November 15, 2005 07:55 PMBlue Jean, I don't believe anyone is discussing a repeal of the First Amendment in favor of dictatorship. What people are saying is that words have consequences. Americans are free to say what they want about the war, the president, and the policies. However it is true that those claiming that we are losing the war, or advocating a cut and run strategy are encouraging the enemy. Dispite the enemys loses in Iraq of men, money and local public support if they feel that they are winning based on the US news media they will continue to fight. I am not saying it is wrong to question our government, I'm saying that in wartime the people making the critisim need to understand the effects of that critism and decide if it it worth the cost. If people do critisize the government in wartime they need to ensure they do it in an honest and resposible way. Posted by: Bernie at November 15, 2005 08:07 PMHas anyone used the "Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan" quote yet? The administrative branch answers to the president. When he says jump, you say “how high”. No career federal employee is going to risk his pension by mentioning something to the senate without the presidents approval. We are civil servants, not policy makers. If the president's men say “put this in the briefing and let this out” the federal employee may object, but he does what he is told. When political considerations overrule logic and reason all you can do is advise the correct course, overruling an elected/appointed official is not an option. The clip certainly makes the democrats look stupid. I can remember some of them saying those things in 2002 and thought it was a dumb thing to say at the time. When the public was for the war they were for the war, now that the public is against it, they are against it. On the other hand it does ignore the fact that the president controls the content of the briefings supplied to the senators. Tricking a senator into supporting the war makes him look like a chump, but it makes you look like a conman. Maybe this will be the year for a third party. Posted by: Bob J Young at November 15, 2005 08:15 PMThe current lie by the president is that the Congress had the same intelligence as the Bush himself. This is totally false. Pardon my French, Marcus, but that's pure-D bullshit. You really need to lay off the Koolaid. The members of the SSIC had the exact same intel access and summary reports as the White House, or better. The Robb-Silberman Commission reported that the PDBs and SEIBs were, if anything, MORE alarmist than what Congress in general received and MORE reinforcing of a sense of urgency about Saddam. And the RSC had ALL the PDBs and SEIB's in their hands to review. As problematic as the October 2002 NIE was, it was not the Community's biggest analytic failure on Iraq. Even more misleading was the river of intelligence that flowed from the CIA to top policymakers over long periods of time--in the President's Daily Brief (PDB) and in its more widely distributed companion, the Senior Executive Intelligence Brief (SEIB). These daily reports were, if anything, more alarmist and less nuanced than the NIE. If there was overselling or misleading about the intel going on, it was the intel community itself doing it. The Commission found no evidence of political pressure to influence the Intelligence Community's pre-war assessments of Iraq's weapons programs. As we discuss in detail in the body of our report, analysts universally asserted that in no instance did political pressure cause them to skew or alter any of their analytical judgments. We conclude that it was the paucity of intelligence and poor analytical tradecraft, rather than political pressure, that produced the inaccurate pre-war intelligence assessments. --Robb/Silberman Inconvenient facts for the bonfire-building scapegoat-chasing fundie zealots of the Chimpy McHitler Church of the Apocalypse. And every single one of those posturing Congresscritters knows it. Jean, I sure didn't see a call for the repeal of the First Amendment anywhere in that post. I did see the note that nasty public squabbling during wartime doesn't exactly help the troops in the field. That it encourages the enemy. And the First Amendment gives me the right to say that loudly. In any case, my voice or ABel's are nowhere near as loud as, say, Michael Barone's in US NEWS & WORLD REPORT online: The Democrats are trying to relitigate the prewar intelligence issue in the hopes of delegitimizing this administration. But in delegitimizing the administration, they also tend to delegitimize the efforts of the U.S. government, including military personnel, in Iraq and generally in the war against Islamic terrorism. To the extent they delegitimize the United States, they are hurting the cause of freedom for millions of people. I do not say the Democrats are being unpatriotic, a word they seem fixated on. So far as I am aware, no responsible Republican has charged that they are unpatriotic; John McCain refused Bob Schieffer's invitation to do so. But I do say this: The Democrats who are peddling the Big Lie of "Bush lied" are doing so either (a) deliberately to injure the cause of the United States and of freedom in the world or, as I think, (b) with reckless disregard of whether they injure the cause of the United States and of freedom in the world. What they are doing may suit their political needs, but it hurts our country. Or as loud as editorial page editor Fred Hiatt's voice in the Washington Post today: "Those aren't irrelevant questions," says Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.). "But the more they dominate the public debate, the harder it is to sustain public support for the war." IOW, the urge to "Get Bush" appears to be superceding their responsibility to the nation as a whole, and any responsibility to the people of Iraq. No, Bob, the White House does NOT control the briefings that go to the SSIC. The SEIBs are normally the exact same intel as the PDBs. Sometimes they're better and more detailed. As Bernie notes, the SSIC has both the de facto and de jure control and oversight responsibility for the intel community. The SSIC is better situated to have a "long view," and has continuity from administration to administration. Better go check what the Democratic SSIC members were saying. Some of them are in that commercial. Damn, I'm ornery tonight. Is it a full moon? Posted by: Tully at November 15, 2005 08:59 PMWell, look at this way; at least you're not busting up bars or kicking winos. (Winos have feelings too, ya know. ;-) Posted by: Blue Jean at November 15, 2005 09:16 PMTully, it was a full moon last night. Believe me, I had my regular Tuesday lunch at my son's school and I thought I was lunching at the zoo. Jean, you do know me well enough to know that I'm not endorsing a repeal of the 1st Amendment. You won't find a stronger believer in it--that's why you never want to involve me in discussion about labeling music, etc. I'm more liberal than a lot of Democrats you know...lol. My point is that a lot of people are making the observation that the only other war (besides the Civil War for very obvious reasons) that the country was so divided on was Vietnam, which also happens to be the one war we lost. I'm not saying I'd be in favor of the Vietnam War, but I do thing that unity in the midst of war does say something to the enemy. I did not support the invasion, but once we were in...I had to put that aside. I want to win! Posted by: AR at November 15, 2005 09:29 PMJohn Kerry recently introduced the "Strategy for Success in Iraq Act" in the Senate. It demands a timeline and milestones for our operations in Iraq as a means of generating some form of quantifiable progress in the country instead of the undefined objectives we are currently dealing with. I think many of you will agree with me that this completely sends the wrong message to our troops and is further proof of the Democrats' irresponsible nature. By introducing legislation to define our objectives in Iraq and set benchmarks to ensure our operations are achieving their goals, the Democrats have shown that their hatred of President Bush will override all other interests. By proposing a "plan" for success in Iraq, John Kerry once again proves he just wants America to fail there all so he can continue to demonize President Bush. It's deplorable how he doesn't care about our soldiers or the Iraqis. Tully: The president doesn't control the CIA? My god!!! The stories about the black helicopters are true :-} Posted by: Bob J Young at November 15, 2005 10:10 PMI want to see America win this war, too, Abel. But we're not going to win anything if we label every critic a traitor, or impose national censorship in the name of a quasi-religious cult of personality. Once we start doing that, then the war is already lost, because the freedom that makes America great is lost. (OK, you can put your hats back on now. ;-) I'm not sure what history books you're reading, but there has been criticism of the President in each and every war we've had. The Revolutionary War was far, far more divisive than this one; Washington himself would have been hanged as a traitor had a few events gone the other way. Yet Washington won. There were rampant attacks on Madison during the War of 1812. Yet that war was won. "Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star", (Of course, that was a Republican former president criticizing a Democratic one, so of course, by wingnut standards, it’s “patriotism”, not “treason”. Besides, that was just during a little skirmish called WW I, not the big, important Iraq conflict which was supposed to be over in a month. There were attacks on FDR during WWII, led by then Senate Minority Leader Robert Taft, and that was within a few months of Pearl Harbor, not four years after the fact. Yet that war was won. If I was feeling really ornery, I could point out thatFox News is running Rep. Martin Frost’s views; that hardly makes Fox a Democratic pawn, and it doesn't make Frost a traitor. Frankly, I don't see where it says ANYWHERE that the terrorists are suddenly, magically going to stop shooting at Americans if everybody stays really, really quiet and never says anything mean about the son of God--oops, I mean, son of Bush. The terrorists are going to do what they do because they’re envious of America, or get their 70 sloe eyed virgins, or just because they feel ornery, not because somebody, somewhere, is saying that this war was a bad idea or is being badly run. The fallacy "Every Time You Say Something Uncomplimentary About My Guy, Another Terrorist Kills Someone You Love" is as old as "Every Time You Touch Yourself, You Make The Baby Jesus Cry" and makes about as much sense. Posted by: Blue Jean at November 15, 2005 10:22 PMGee, Ryan, by your logic, that must mean Frist and the Senate GOP must hate W and the troops, and Mom and apple pie too, since they're calling for the exact same thing. Posted by: Blue Jean at November 15, 2005 10:39 PM
Posted by: Blue Jean at November 15, 2005 11:26 PM
No Blue Jean, it's not the same thing at all. Didn't you read Tully's post with all the angry collumnists? The Democrats are so obsessed with taking down the President that they're willing to sacrifice success in Iraq and put our troops in harms way. That means Kerry's legislation must be some clever ruse to actually lose in Iraq and hurt the President. Let's not fall for it. The Republicans have a monopoly on American Patriotism. Didn't you know that? They're legislation is always altruistic and good for the country. Don't question it, or you'll send the wrong message to our troops. : ) Posted by: Ryan Somma at November 16, 2005 07:54 AMThe Republican congressman, John Duncan, of Tennessee said it best. Regardless of how we got in, "when you find yourself going down the wrong road, you turn around". Democrats, Republicans, hawks, and doves all have the right, and in this case the reason(s), to stop and turn around on our Iraqi policy. Saddam has been disarmed. Mission accomplished. Posted by: Tom Chadwell at November 16, 2005 09:03 AMRyan, can you tell me more about these "undefined objectives" you've mentioned? Posted by: bk at November 16, 2005 09:27 AMRyan, can you tell me more about these "undefined objectives" you've mentioned? Posted by: bk at November 16, 2005 09:34 AMAs is typical for the administration, the ad is highly dishonest. As demonstrated by Ryan Lizza in TNR Online, the quotes of the Democrats featured in the ad are taken out of context, a context which shows a meaning opposite to what Bush wants you to believe. For instance, Bush tries to show Sen. Levin supporting the need to oust Saddam when he said, "The war against terrorism will not be finished as long as Saddam Hussein is in power." The only problem is if you look at the context of that sentence: The war against terrorism will not be finished as long as he is in power. But that does not mean he is the next target. Simply put, Sen. Levin was arguing to keep an eye on Saddam, but not to invade at that time. Posted by: Scott Smith at November 16, 2005 09:36 AMSaddam has been disarmed. Mission accomplished. I opposed starting this war, but the above statement is highly absurd. You go into the future from the present you have, not the present you might want. What happens to American interests if we pull out now? The choice between leaving this unfinished right now or continuing is a no-bainer. Maybe, at some point in the future, it won't be. But it is now. Posted by: WHQ at November 16, 2005 09:49 AMI agree that Congress cannot escape responsibility for the war and it's highly disingenous for Democrats that voted for the war to now say they didn't know what they were doing. A more honest statement (which, of course, they would never say) is that they voted for it because they feared the political effect of voting against it. Having said that, Congress is not the one that proposed the war or that set the policy. That was the president. Given the president's ability to set the agenda, I don't think you can give Congress the primary responsibility. It' snot as if Bush came to Congress, laid out the facts, and said let's decide. He made a case for war, using intelligence that turned out to be wrong, and emotional appeals about patriotims, democracy, and apple pie. Under the circumstances, it's unreasonable to expect Congress to just say no to the president. I think Russ Feingold deserves much credit for having the balls to vote against the war, whether you agreed with the vote or not. But to say that Congress is equally responsible with the president is just wrong. Whether or not they had the same intelligence is irrelevant; it was the context in which they received it. Congress had no ability to examine the credibility and reliability of the evidence. They couldn't go and question the CIA analysts. That was the administration's job. I think it's time for Bush to stop blaming opponents of the war for how badly the war is going and examine the policy itself. I'm tired of hearing how criticism is undermining the war effort. Even if it's true, this is America and I don't think you are going to persuade opponents to shut up. Frankly, I think that should be one of the factors that a president considers in deciding whether to go to war, ie, that if the war goes badly, you better expect that support will melt away. I mean, if someone had said in March 2003 that, in two years, our troops would still be in Iraq and that we would have suffered 2000 deaths, wouldn't you have assumed that support for the war would be dissolving? Posted by: Marc at November 16, 2005 10:43 AMRyan, can you tell me more about these "undefined objectives" you've mentioned? Good call bk. Maybe I should have used the term "Mercurial Objectives." We are in Iraq to protect ourselves from WMDs... or to fight terrorism... or to spread Freedom... or to establish a Liberal Democracy... or a theocratic Democracy... Whatever we feel like being there for as immediate political needs arise. Maybe our reasons aren't exactly undefined, they're just nebulous, which is what's really putting our troops and success in Iraq in peril. I'm with the Republicans and Democrats who are now demanding a specific list of objectives and measurable milestones toward achieving them. Currently no such document exists. People have been arguing the importance of a specific post-war strategy in Iraq since before the war. Congress needs to take control and oversee the implementation of such a plan. "Freedom" and "Democracy" are wonderful, emotively-appealing concepts to be fighting for, but they are also vague. This lack of concrete, measurable objectives in Iraq is what's putting our Troops in danger... Not questioning the President. No Blue Jean, it's not the same thing at all. Didn't you read Tully's post with all the angry collumnists? The Democrats are so obsessed with taking down the President that they're willing to sacrifice success in Iraq and put our troops in harms way. That means Kerry's legislation must be some clever ruse to actually lose in Iraq and hurt the President. Let's not fall for it. Exactly, Ryan. After all, the only reason anyone could possibly have for opposing this war is that they hate our God blessed W and think he's a bad person. It has nothing to do with pinning our forces down in a hopeless quagmire, people getting killed or maimed, America's good name being sullied with torture, or any of a hundred other reasons; it's all because they want to make the wonderful W look small. Thanks for setting me straight. Posted by: Blue Jean at November 16, 2005 11:43 AMMeh. I think there's a real tension here. Vagueness has its virtues. Were I President, I'd be willing to entertain the notion that the real request was "please give us a detailed description so that we can use it to make a report card for you." And the implication I'd hear as immediately following is "and then flunk you on it." The problem for me is that I don't feel like I have any reason, at least at this point, to think this is a good faith bipartisan effort to have democrats and the GOP work together, establish reasonably detailed objectives, and then follow through to carry them out. I'm open to persuasion on that count, but I am definitely not holding my breath. I'm especially suspicious of John Kerry on this count, and I say that as someone who repeatedly defended him against many of the accusations against him that I thought were unfair. The one accusation against Kerry made during the 2004 campaign that I thought WAS fair was this: he criticized the President for not having an Iraq plan, and then he shopped a laundry list of "things we should do" that very closely resembled the things that the current administration actually WAS doing. So on that count, at that time, I classed him as pretty much full of $h!+. And so my suspicion is that he's trying a similar thing here. And that's definitely a problem, a lack of trust and good will on the part of both sides in the relationship between parties, and between the white house and congress. The admin deserves some blame here. But Bush worries about the possibility that some members of congress who say they want to work with him are really more interested in undermining him, and I can't say he's wrong to worry about that. Personally, I find myself not at all unclear about what our objectives are in Iraq, and I'm not persuaded by the notion that vagueness threatens the troops well being. In part because vagueness is the negative side of a coin which has a positive side called "flexibility." And in part because because the troops on the ground are given military objectives by their commanders. Whereas what you are talking about is political objectives. Now perhaps troops on the ground are not being given clear military objectives, but I've not heard this. Seems to me its likely that field troops on offensive operations usually have pretty clearly defined objectives. Forces training Iraqis likewise have a pretty clear objective. Troops on security/peacekeeping details may well have vaguer objectives, but I don't see any way around that anymore than I expect, say, domestic US police officers on patrol to have a much more clearly defined objective than to protect and serve. This latter charge might be accompanied by a list of priorities and orders to exercise good judgement based on those priorities, but that's about it. Posted by: bk at November 16, 2005 11:52 AMMy opinions are shaped by my experiences working on extremely large projects. My current project plan extends into 2015, with objectives I have to meet each quarter to ensure the project is achieving its goals. My team often misses project goals, there are many unexpected pitfalls along the way and each time we slip, we adjust our time tables... thus we ensure flexibility. Four years ago our workplan extended to 2008, now it's 2015. As our understanding of the project becomes more defined, we have more flexibility and a better understanding of what is required for success. In science the best way to settle an argument is to find ways to quantify elements of what's under dispute. Measure something and argue about the measurement. If we have no way to quantify our disputation concerning Iraq, then we have no means to evaluate our progress. That might give some people comfort, but I find the lack specifics unsettling. What if we were to sacrifice specific measurables in other political debates? Imagine a debate over balancing the budget where we have no spreadsheet with account balances. Imagine implementing the "No Child Left Behind Act" without grade scales and test scores. Would you argue that lacking such data provides "more flexibility?" I don't see how quantification can be a bad thing if it provides a common frame of reference from which to argue. The alternative is not flexibility, but uncertainty. As for troops on the ground and training Iraqis: this is a forest VS trees argument. Of course the Senate and I are talking about the big picture in Iraq. The individual units all know what to do, but a clearer understanding of the big picture is what will help inform debate on this matter. A big picture understanding will assess where improvements can be made, which will trickle down to the individual units and improve their productivity. Ryan, if the people demanding the data were consistent and intellectually honest on the subject (i.e., they weren't politicians), then some of that (not all of it but some of it) would make sense. But political factors make that next to impossible. In politics, you can't just say, "well, the 2008 deadline is obviously not going to work any more, so let's move it back to 2016." It would be political suicide to do so. The opposing party would scream everywhere about how the person who put forward the original schedule "lied" when they said we'd be done in 2008. Every missed deadline would be a "lie." And if the CEO did the responsible thing and either canned or just carefully and politely retired the person or people responsible for the slipped schedule, he'd still be blamed by an angry mob of partisan activists. So it's a lovely thought, but it fails precisely because of the biggest problem we have in politics right now, the intensity, harshness, and personalization of political criticism. We cannot have rational policy debates and discussions when one or both sides of the debate are more interested in "gotchas" and catching "mistakes" or "lies" then in really debating the policy. Posted by: PatHMV at November 16, 2005 12:43 PMWhat if we were to sacrifice specific measurables in other political debates? Imagine a debate over balancing the budget where we have no spreadsheet with account balances. Imagine implementing the "No Child Left Behind Act" without grade scales and test scores. Would you argue that lacking such data provides "more flexibility?" I don't see how quantification can be a bad thing if it provides a common frame of reference from which to argue. The alternative is not flexibility, but uncertainty. Flexibility? I think it's rather obvious that this relates to objectives, based upon data. I'm not arguing against measuring things that are specificially measurable. As you know well, not all things are,specifically measurable. Unfortunate but true. IMO, in the domain of political objectives, there's often a distinct lack of such specific measurables, or those things which are specifically measurable are insufficent to paint the overall picture. I hope you won't pretend not to know pretty well what I'm talking about here. This is not an argument that's really worth having while speaking generally as we are here, is it? Both of us get to say things that sound good in theory, but what we need to worry about is whether they make good sense in practice, in particular, in the practice of evaluating the Iraq war effort. By implication, you seem to be presenting the hypothesis that there are specific measurables related to the Iraq war that 1)the current admin is not measuring, 2) which would be useful to measure 3) which would help the war effort by publicizing them. So go ahead and tell us what you think those things are. I'm listening. Seriously. And please don't re-submit the link to the Kerry press release, which is full of high-minded crap about things like how crucial it is to send "signals" to the Iraqi people that we don't intend a permanent occupation, and demands a calendar for various troop withdrawals. If you ask me, this thing reads like "the act to install John Kerry as de facto President even though he lost the election." Anyone who thinks we want a permanent occupation of Iraq is an idiot. The American people don't support it, and we're hemorrhaging red ink over it. the notion we'd stay longer than we had to is laughable. As far as troop withdrawals and power transitions goes, it makes a ton of sense to me not to telegraph our plans way ahead of time. Imagine playing a game of chess, and writing a list of the next 10 moves you planned. In your world of projects and plans and objectives and deadlines and so on, let me ask you this. Do you make all these things public knowledge to your competitors? If so, I'd love to know who you work for so I can invest accordingly. Posted by: bk at November 16, 2005 12:50 PMThere's a damn big difference between milestones and schedules. And I would hasten to point out that while it's Democrat congresscritters who are being irresponsibly partisan, it's certainly not ALL Democrat congresscritters by quite a stretch. Blame where blame is due, credit where credit is due. Criticism is one thing. High-level official partisan tear-downs based on lies that have a negative effect on our war efforts are other things entirely. Talk about free speech all you like. Those Congresscritters have the legal right to lie in public. And we have the legal right to point out exactly what the effects of that irresponsible partisan hackery are, and how it affects the war effort. Calling a lie a lie is not a repression of the 1st Amendment. Calling lying partisan hacks what they are is not a repression of their free speech rights. An excerpt from Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman's statement on the Senate floor yesterday: The questions raised about prewar intelligence are not irrelevant, they are not unimportant, but they are nowhere near as important and relevant as how we successfully complete our mission in Iraq and protect the 150,000 men and women in uniform who are fighting for us there. For Leiberman that's a pretty big damn warning to his own party. He's telling them that if we fail in Iraq, the blame will fall on them--and that's the same warning Bush was sending with his speech. When some of our politicians start acting as though a few points in the polls are more important than the success of our efforts in Iraq, well, that's despicable. It was despicable when Clare Booth Luce did it from the speaker's podium at the 1944 Republican National Convention at the same time our troops were dying to liberate France. It's still despicable today. And that won't go unnoticed in the longer run of history. For once even Pat Buchanan has something intelligent to say. Not nearly as circumspect as Leiberman or Hiatt, but dead on as far as the politics goes. Democrats who have had it all their way since Cindy Sheehan set up Camp Casey would do well to wonder whether they have not ridden out a little too far into Indian country and are heading for the Little Big Horn where their daddies disappeared long ago. As Buchanan goes on to point out, war powers lie with the Congress. They gave that power to Bush. It's too late for them to invent excuses. And if their scrambling for cover coincides with failure in Iraq, they'll pay the price. Some on the left view Vietnam as a victory, and want to re-create that halcyon era, regardless of the cost to our nation, or to the people of Iraq. For the rest of us Vietnam wasn't a victory. As I warned during the campaign last year, "Vote Democratic for another Vietnam!" is NOT a selling point when seeking a national majority. Posted by: Tully at November 16, 2005 12:51 PMTully, interesting that you point out Lieberman. because I was thinking about the recent past and about Kerry, and about what Ryan had said. And I kept coming back to what Pat just pointed about above, the lack of good will and trust. What's sorely lacking here is true statesmanship, putting important national objectives above partisanship. My list of statesmen got only as far as McCain and Lieberman. Kerry has failed the sniff test for me at least ever since his Presidential ambitions got the better of him. Posted by: bk at November 16, 2005 01:01 PMBy implication, you seem to be presenting the hypothesis that there are specific measurables related to the Iraq war that 1)the current admin is not measuring, 2) which would be useful to measure 3) which would help the war effort by publicizing them. So go ahead and tell us what you think those things are. I'm listening. Seriously. The answer to this question lies in the upcomming debate between the Democrat's and Republican's competing legislations to define these measurables and objectives, which I look forward to. I am not a policy maker and therefore not qualified as a lone individual to answer this question. I'll be more informed after the issue is debated openly among many minds. My argument has never been that the Republicans or Democrats are right or wrong on our success or failure in Iraq, only that a debate should occur to establish common frames of reference on the issue. My understanding of your position at this time is that you believe such a debate would be detrimental to our operations in Iraq and that any attempt to quantify our success there is really an insidious attempt by lawmakers to emphasize Bush's failures. And please don't re-submit the link to the Kerry press release, which is full of high-minded crap about things like how crucial it is to send "signals" to the Iraqi people that we don't intend a permanent occupation, and demands a calendar for various troop withdrawals. If you ask me, this thing reads like "the act to install John Kerry as de facto President even though he lost the election." Interesting. So is that what the Republicans are doing by introducing similar legislature? I guess all senators want to be "de facto" president when they introduce any sort of legislature. Maybe you need to review the Balance of Power principles of our Government. The problem with our discussion is your infatuation with the true intentions of politicians. You're emphasizing John Kerry's possible motives as a means to circumvent debate over determining our progress in Iraq. In logic this is known as the "ad hominem" fallacy. I usually appreciate your logic bk, but your irrational hatred for John Kerry is interfering with your ability to discuss this issue. So let's remove him from the equation and focus entirely on the Republican's proposed legislation. Or is it filled with more "high minded crap." What does that mean anyway? Is Bush giving American's "high minded crap" everytime he gives a stump speech? In your world of projects and plans and objectives and deadlines and so on, let me ask you this. Do you make all these things public knowledge to your competitors? I'm trully confused by this statement. What are the "competitors" of which you speak? If you want to apply the Corporation anaology to our Government. Then we should think of the American People as Stockholders. Keeping them informed of our progress in Iraq is good business. I recieve fairly detailed project plans from the companies I hold stock in all the time. Are you suggesting an informed electorate is detrimental to our operations in Iraq? Don't be obtuse, Ryan. He's obviously referring to the military opposition--the "insurgents." You remember them? The people who execute schoolteachers in front of their students? Who blow up civilians? Who saw the heads off of people for jollies? More crucial than "not sending signals" about a permanent occupation (which is absurd to begin with--look at the reaction our current deployment garners) is "not sending signals" that we will bail out and leave them weak and threatened because some of our politicians don't have the will to face down the head-choppers and teacher-killers. Posted by: Tully at November 16, 2005 02:33 PMTully, NYT 11/3/04 the Intelligence Committee agreed to delay an examination of whether White House descriptions of Iraq's military capabilities were "substantiated by intelligence information." As a result, Senate investigators were not permitted to interview White House officials about what they knew of the tubes debate and when they knew it.
[S]everal Congressional and intelligence officials with access to the 15 assessments [of intel suggesting aluminum tubes showed Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program] said not one of them informed senior policy makers of the Energy Department’s dissent. They described a series of reports, some with ominous titles, that failed to convey either the existence or the substance of the intensifying debate.” [NYT, 10/3/04] Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-NE), ex-Senate Intelligence Committee vice chairman: “The president has much more access to intelligence than members of Congress does. Ask any member of Congress. Ask a Republican member of Congress, do you get the same access to intelligence that the president does? Look at these aluminum tube stories that came out the president delivered to the Congress — ‘We believe these would be used for centrifuges.’ — didn’t deliver to Congress the full range of objections from the Department of Energy experts, nuclear weapons experts, that said it’s unlikely they were for centrifuges, more likely that they were for rockets, which was a pre-existing use. The president has much more access to intelligence than any member of Congress.”October 8, 2004, CNN's American Morning: Jay Rockefeller (D-WV): “[P]eople say, ‘Well, you know, you all had the same intelligence that the White House had.’ And I’m here to tell you that is nowhere near the truth. We not only don’t have, nor probably should we have, the Presidential Daily Brief. We don’t have the constant people who are working on intelligence who are very close to him. They don’t release their — an administration which tends not to release — not just the White House, but the CIA, DOD [Department of Defense], others — they control information. There’s a lot of intelligence that we don’t get that they have.” and again, as Powell, who does know better, said that some of the intelligence was misleading.
REal desperate. The last thing they want is Democrats in charge of subpeopnas. Posted by: Marcus at November 16, 2005 02:50 PM*Yawn* Anything else going on in the world? Posted by: AR at November 16, 2005 02:58 PMRyan, what aspect of my alleged irrational hatred for John Kerry do you suppsoe led me to repeatedly defend him against many of the criticisms leveled at him during the 2004 campaign? FWIW, High-minded crap refers to rhetoric about sending signals, especially when it focuses on one supposed signal and ignores others. Such rhetoric is not necessarily BS, but it always put me on alert, no matter who is saying "we have to be careful about sending the wrong signal to X." I'm not sure whether you genuinely misunderstand my position, or are simply being obtuse, as Tully suggests. As far as having a debate goes, my position is that the debate on the merits of our post 9/11 foreign policy, particularly as it relates to Iraq, has been ongoing for several years, and continues to go on in public, in the media, on the internet, and so on. It's not my impression that there has been no debate. Establishing commmon frames of reference sounds like a good idea to me. But I have to admit that I am FAR less optimistic than you that whatever sort of debate you imagine (some sort of extended public battle in congress?) will achieve these common frames of reference, I offer the content of this thread as exhibit A on that count. And I offer countless other similar threads here over the past year or more as exhibits B-Z. I'm still waiting for the first blink, never mind a budge. As I said, I am not sure exactly what form your imagined new yet-to-be-conducted debate will take, but if it occurs in public, as a battle between democratic and republican politicians, on a nation stage, my forecast is that it will be composed primarily of additional iterations of clashing frames of reference. Posted by: bk at November 16, 2005 03:15 PManother bit of the Vice President Cheney and his chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, overruling advice from some White House political staffers and lawyers, decided to withhold crucial documents from the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2004 when the panel was investigating the use of pre-war intelligence that erroneously concluded Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, according to Bush administration and congressional sources. Among the White House materials withheld from the committee were Libby-authored passages in drafts of a speech that then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell delivered to the United Nations in February 2003 to argue the Bush administration's case for war with Iraq, according to congressional and administration sources. The withheld documents also included intelligence data that Cheney's office -- and Libby in particular -- pushed to be included in Powell's speech, the sources said. ... Had the withheld information been turned over, according to administration and congressional sources, it likely would have shifted a portion of the blame away from the intelligence agencies to the Bush administration as to who was responsible for the erroneous information being presented to the American public, Congress, and the international community. In April 2004, the Intelligence Committee released a report that concluded that "much of the information provided or cleared by the Central Intelligence Agency for inclusion in Secretary Powell's [United Nation's] speech was overstated, misleading, or incorrect." Both Republicans and Democrats on the committee say that their investigation was hampered by the refusal of the White House to turn over key documents, although Republicans said the documents were not as central to the investigation. ... After the release of the report, Intelligence Committee, Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and Vice Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said they doubted that the Senate would have authorized the president to go to war if senators had been given accurate information regarding Iraq's programs on weapons of mass destruction. "I doubt if the votes would have been there," Roberts said. Rockefeller asserted, "We in Congress would not have authorized that war, in 75 votes, if we knew what we know now." Posted by: Marcus at November 16, 2005 03:31 PMIf this centrist blog is any indicator of the greater political debate then I would bet we'll hear the "impeach Bush" cry come up in the next six months. That would be just about right: 2 years into the second term. Posted by: c3 at November 16, 2005 04:35 PMMore crucial than "not sending signals" about a permanent occupation (which is absurd to begin with--look at the reaction our current deployment garners) is "not sending signals" that we will bail out and leave them weak and threatened because some of our politicians don't have the will to face down the head-choppers and teacher-killers. Don't be obtuse Tully. bk and I were discussing the merits of legislation to define objectives and milestones for success in Iraq. Try and maintain the scope of the argument... unless you think Democrats and Republicans defining a strategy for success in Iraq sends the wrong signals. Then please, feel free to argue with strawmen to your heart's delight. Posted by: Ryan Somma at November 16, 2005 04:39 PMAs I said, I am not sure exactly what form your imagined new yet-to-be-conducted debate will take, but if it occurs in public, as a battle between democratic and republican politicians, on a nation stage, my forecast is that it will be composed primarily of additional iterations of clashing frames of reference. Which I believe will result in achieving an ideal mean on the issue and a resultant legislation forged in the fires of disputation... or it will achieve nothing, as you have pessimistically noted. In which case I must ask, why engage in argument at all? Strawman, Ryan? I had no trouble at all understanding his point, and my comment was relevant to both the specific and general of the thread. You're entirely too bright to pull off the feigned ignorance approach. BTW, if y'all go and read either the Democrat or Republican versions of that "benchmarking" legislation, you'll find that in both cases it's purely symbolic. Which in turn lends more weight to the "political catfight" interpretation. Marcus, it seems to be cherry-flavored today for you. As in cherry-picking, but you couldn't even find any ripe ones. Take the NJ article. It's about an unrelated investigtion that actually confirms that the speech being mentioned was vetted twice by the CIA for accuracy and reliability with everything the intel community found in the least questionable redacted out--and it was still completely wrong. Which doesn't exactly support your argument. Quite the opposite. It shows that inside the admin there was debate about what was usable intel, but that what was actually presented by the admin was the most vetted and verified version they could manage, approved by the intel community itself, with all the things found questionable by the intel community removed despite the urging of the uberhawks. And you're ignoring completely the major point of this thread. Namely, that the reckless partisanship of the historically revisionist Dems is destructive of the war effort, and the White House and GOP are starting to signal that they will pound that point home to the public. That revisionism is also, in the long run, destructive of the Dem party's future. As those arch-Republican fiends Joe Leiberman and Fred Hiatt pointed out. Oh, wait--they're Democrats! So I'll be clear. What the historically revisionist Dems are doing is making the argument that they're not to blame for their own approval of war powers for use against Iraq. That they were hoodwinked. That they're stoooooooopid. That they abdicated the clear duties and responsibilities of their positions, and can not be held accountable for so doing, because they're too stoooooopid. That it's not their fault they're incompetent, and that their incompetence is why they can't be blamed. Because the reason Congress has the war powers authorization is to prevent random exercises of the military, and it's Congress' duty and responsibility to exercise the "due diligence." Which they are now arguing they failed to do because they were incompetent at doing their jobs. That's not how they put it, but it's what it adds up to. If it weren't so disgusting it'd be hilarious. (Note: Bernie pointed this out first, above, I'm just rephrasing and expanding.) Posted by: Tully at November 16, 2005 05:59 PMFor once even Pat Buchanan has something intelligent to say.An important parenthetical to that point is that Buchanan is an outspoken opponent of the war; his argument has a strain of "more isolationist than thou" to it. Posted by: Simon at November 16, 2005 06:44 PM Yep. Which makes it even more relevant. When your opponents tell you you're screwing yourself, it is very wise to take that criticism with a grain of salt. But when your friends and fellow travellers also tell you you're screwing yourself (and your country) you should probably listen. Posted by: Tully at November 16, 2005 06:59 PMAnd in other news, chaining yourself to an anvil makes you fly! Posted by: Blue Jean at November 16, 2005 11:58 PMJean; Chris, here's why the polls matter...you can't count on a sophisticated rational response from the general public, but you can usually count on a visceral response that gets it roughly right. When I cast my mind back to the tun up to the war, I reall clearly that the view of many people was basically "OK, if you're sure we need to do this, then ok, even if I hvae my doubts. But if these WMDs don't turn up, that's your bad." I recall vividly a lenthy coversation with a colleague who was a staunch Republican, and at the time, I made it clear that i was williong to give the President the benfit of th doubt at the time being, but that if the alleged weapons didn't turn up, it would be Bush's bad, and that would reflect very poorly upon him, We even discussed and agreed upon an 18-24 month time frame. And he agreed that my take was fair, and that if no WMD turned up, that would be Bush's bad. So this really feels like a bit of goalline moving to me. Now to people who want to criticze some of the democrats who are trying to have it both ways, fine. Some of them deserve it. But that doesn't change a wit for me that Bush was the prime mover and the buck stops with him. Andf this very much ties up into the visceral response of the GP. Most of them don't really care about the details of lied vs. mised vs. presented the best case ve intelligence failure. What they care about if that they trusted the government with George Bush as its leader to be right. They remember Bush and Powell telling us it was so. Those 2 guys were at the front of the line leading the charge. And now it turns out that what we were told was wrong, and we're stuck in a costly war for which most people can't see an end in sight. In the public eye, this war is tacked, nailed, stapled, tied, glued and tattooed to George Bush. The judgement of the people is moving to the view that the US could have avoided this war's many costs if the government, as led by GWB, had done its job better. And as of today they're not at all convinced that we've reaped much tangible benefit. Posted by: bk at November 17, 2005 09:38 AMBK: As I said, I am not sure exactly what form your imagined new yet-to-be-conducted debate will take, but if it occurs in public, as a battle between democratic and republican politicians, on a nation stage, my forecast is that it will be composed primarily of additional iterations of clashing frames of reference.
Well, I'm still waiting for you to explain what what form your imagined new yet-to-be-conducted debate will take, are you talking about the legislation? Not every fire is a forge, Ryan.If the fire is too hot, you get melting and burning. Why engage in debate? Again, you are being obtuse, and clearly it must be deliberate. You are trying to traffic the notion that we haven't had any debate. If we hadn't had any, I'd be all for it, because, I, like you, believe it can be a worthwhile pursuit for bringing out all the facts and viewpoints and achieving some measure of consensus. The point that I made rather obviously is that we have been having this debate for quite some time now, and no progress has been made, indeed competing frames of reference have only hardened, as each unfruitful debate makes each debater more invested in his or her perspective. The question is not "why have debate at all?" The question is whether debate is a worthy enough pursuit that one should continue it without end because it will inevitably bring about agreement. So yeah, maybe you are simply and only more optimistic than me, and that's the only reason you are puffing this notion of a new debate because we haven't had one simply because you really think that all we need to do is keep talking about it. Or maybe you're trying to muster support for John Kerry's laundry list. Oh yeah, and maybe Kerry is not doing this as a prelude to a 2008 run. If you think Kerry's plan is an honest and forthright exercise of leadership and will bring about an "ideal mean," well then good for you, I'm glad you have a hero to believe in. My viewpoint is that I think it's unreasonable to expect Bush's risky gamble to proceed much differently from the way it has so far. I've had lower expectations than others on this from day 1. I honestly don't feel we're well served by putting the finer points of the current effort under a public microscope. There's a good reason why the congress approves and then once the boots hit the ground, the operation unfolds via a hierarchical decision-making structure with a commander in chief making choices about # of troops, operation plans, and resources. Give me a one-cook stew. I'm not being obtuse, bk, I'm simply taking your statements at face value and not reading into them. The more verbal accuity you exersize in your posts, the better I will understand them. You and Tully may know what you mean when you call John Kerry's Legislation "High Minded Crap," but that really doesn't explain what the problem is with it specifically to me. When you tried to simplify the problem with generating a plan in Iraq with an analogy to a Business... the analogy didn't work, and I tried to illustrate the problem with it by equating stockholders with American Citizens, which you and Tully didn't understand--but I didn't resort to calling you "obtuse" for it. If you had simply stated straightforwardly: "Establishing a plan for success in Iraq will communicate our intentions to the insurgency." (My present understanding of what you and Tully were arguing.) The I could have responded straightforwardly, which I should have done either way--my mistake. As for progress in the debate. The polls shift, legislation gets passed, and public opinion is swayed. Those are pretty clear measurements of progress and I've been watching them shift all my life. It may not be the progress you want, but we don't always get what we want in politics. I'm not arguing to convince you or Tully. I'm arguing to convince the 90% of people who read this thread without posting to it. That's where the progress is being made by one of us in this disputation. I also get a personal benefit from the exersize by having my ideas challenged and refined. You've pointed out many aspects of this debate I need to factor into the equation. So you have made some progress with me atleast. BTW - I didn't feel the need to respond to anything else in your post because I'm fine with your clarifications of your opinion. You do make some assumptions about me and my opinion that were out of bounds, but I trust other readers understand the scope of what I am arguing. Posted by: Ryan Somma at November 17, 2005 12:07 PMChris, What Brian said. And as you commented earlier, if the war had been as quick and pain-free as had been promised, then few people would have minded if the search for nukes had come up empty. The reverse is true too; if nukes had been found, then there would be little argument about the cost and casualties. Besides, there's plenty of blame to go around here. Yes, a lot of Dem pols voted for the war because W was popular at the time. Yes, a lot of them are saying "We were misled." because his popularity is sinking. Is this venal? Yes. (and I'm sure Tully can come up with a lot of more colorful words to describe it. ;-) Me, I never thought of W as particularly trustworthy, and neither did a lot of the middle-to-left voters. Now that more and more people are coming around to this point of view, it gives those pols cover to say they were duped. Like Willy Sutton's quote about robbing banks, most pols go where the votes are. Staying on W's course despite it all may still pay off for GOP Reps, who only have to please the right, but it's nothing short of suicidal for Dem Reps, whose primary voters belong to the left; anti-W, anti-war, and growing in numbers and volume. Posted by: Blue Jean at November 17, 2005 12:28 PMRyan, forgive me for concluding that you must simply be full of it if you can't admit you were being intentionally obtuse when you asked "why engage in argument at all?" To me, this seems show for a lie your claim that you are simply taking my statements at face value and not reading into them. Because you read them, and then suggested that if I believed as I did, I'd have to conclude that debate wasn't ever worth engaging in at all. You did an awful lot of rhetorical jerking around over the simple and pretty obvious thing I was pointing out, which is that much of this had been debated ad nauseum, which means that suddden progress based on a new initiative is unlikely. Maybe you didn't read into them, maybe you took them at less than face value, Ida know.. As you must know, I personally am virtually always willing to debate. But that does not mean by extension that I therefore think that the general public shares my taste, or that a public debate in congress will change things. Is that enough verbal accuity for you? If you had simply stated straightforwardly: "Establishing a plan for success in Iraq will communicate our intentions to the insurgency." (My present understanding of what you and Tully were arguing.) The I could have responded straightforwardly, which I should have done either way--my mistake. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you simply missed this, but honestly, it strains my credulity to do so. I find it hard to believe that this is not an obvious notion, or that it's one that could be new to you. Please excuse me for thinking that, since you are advocating Kerry's plan on its merits, you'd first have familiarized yourself with the most obvious and most often-stated objection to the idea of issuing a public calendar of planned military events. This seemed like a very reasonable assumption to make based on your obvious intelligence, but now you say it was my mistake. Mea Culpa? Posted by: bk at November 17, 2005 01:01 PM53 and counting as I start my comments. Very nice. There are facts we all know. The Dems who say they were misled voted in favor of the war resolution. The intel on which the decision to go to war was at least partially based was wrong. Now, as I've written before, I never bought the case for the war in Iraq. It all seemed weak and a bit too pieced together, purposely so to support a decision that was already made. I had and still have no basis for this other than my gut. Back to facts. Maybe the dems who are now whining believe they were misled, but they don't know that, at least not now, as far as I know. So, it is irresponsible for them to state unequivocally that they were misled. Some of them aren't doing that, but just want to find out if they were (or maybe, more accurately, THAT they were). Now, to speculate, as bk has, that the dems voted for the resolution only to support the case to be presented before the UN with some implicit understanding that a failure to get UN support would prompt the president to go back to the senate before actually going to war. That is a possibility. And if that claim is made by a yes-voter, it's really up to the listener to decide for himself how that claim reflects on the claimant. One could take it as the yes-voter's giving the president some latitude in making the case to the international community. Or one could take it as the yes-voter's being bullied into support given the bloodthirsty climate existing at the time. Or one could take it as the yes-voter's being spineless and weak, lacking the courage of his convictions. But all of these characterizations assume that the yes-voter was not convinced that going to war was the right thing to do at the time of his vote, in which case, he wasn't actually misled by the intelligence claims, at least not successfully. Futher speculation, in both directions - everyone had the same intel or they didn't. We don't really know either way, do we? We don't really know if the president himself had the same intel that others had within his own administration, let alone in congress. The only way someone who voted for the war to have a valid argument against his own vote now is to know that information, which would have changed his vote, was kept from him. Otherwise, the yes-voter is complicit in the decision to go to war. Maybe that did happen, but you should be able to prove it. I personally suspect that it happened somewhere at sometime at the hands of someone, but so what? I can't prove it. http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1174/608/1600/05.11.13.jpg Posted by: Simon at November 17, 2005 01:35 PM"In the late 1940s, the Party of Truman and FDR was shredded by Nixon, Bill Jenner and Joe McCarthy for having sold out Eastern Europe at Yalta, lost China, and coddled communists and Stalinist spies like Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White. And there was a reason the attacks stuck. They had the ancillary benefit of being true." Tully, Do you think this statement is true? I don't. This is nothing but right-wing Republican slander from the 40s. I'm not going to get into a historical discussion as to why Buchanan's statement is, at the least, simplistic. But if this is your idea of an intelligent statement by Buchanan, I think we have some serious disagreement. As for the Democrats. I agree with WHQ. The Dems that voted for the war are complicit. Let's accept that they do have responsibility for the war. They can't escape the fact that they voted for it; that's obviously one of the things that compromised Kerry's position during the campaign. Saying you didn't know what you were doing won't cut it. In fact, I think it's pretty obvious that the reason most Democrats (and perhaps some Republicans) voted for the was was that they were afraid not to. Their president made it seem that the nation was in imminent danger. It would have taken a very courageous politician to say no to President of the United States. (Anybody want to salute Russ Feingold regardless of your position on the war?) But my response is, so what? This is still Bush's war--I guarantee if the war had gone well, the GOP would not be trying to share the credit with the Democrats. The POTUS was ultimately responsible for developing and presenting the case for war. It was his policy. He was the one that created the war atmosphere in the United States. If Bush had come and said, we need to talk about this and this is my position, then perhaps you could give the Democrats equal blame. But that's not the way it happened and anyone that knows the least bit about American politics should realize how difficult it is for Congress to say no to a president bent on a war. Do I think it was true? No, I think it's simplistic as hell. But I think it's an accurate capsule description of the public perception of the Democrats at the time. They were effectively painted as soft on Communism, and realistically painted as having been entirely too soft on Stalin. Something Stalin reinforced by developing nuclear weapons years ahead of projections, and leaping headlong into Soviet colonialism. Likewise with China. And Buchanan is 100% correct that JFK finally broke out by running as an anti-Red hawk. But that's a side issue--Buchanan's intelligent statement was the point that the Dems are positioning themselves as the "Cut and Run" party, the "Root for Defeat" party, the "America always wrong" party, and that's a Really Stupid Idea that has historically resulted in massive reverses at the polls for them. History may not repeat itself, but it sure loves doing encores. The Dems are showing every sign of actively rooting for failure, of actively wanting our nation humbled and our military shamed. Every sign of trying their best to create a new Vietnam, of desperately desiring to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory for partisan purposes. And if they continue down that road there is no chance at all that the GOP will not pound that image home into the minds of the public. If we leave Iraq as losers, it will be laid at the feet of the Dems. If we leave as victors, it will be be despite them, not because of them, and that message will be ground home. Let's face it--as a party, using their current rhetoric, a palpable victory would hurt them more than anything else, and a palpable defeat would help them. And they seem to be doing what they can to "help" themselves. He was the one that created the war atmosphere in the United States. I'm sorry, Marc, but that's bull. The "war atmosphere" was created by years of solemn pronouncements about the danger of Saddam from damn near everyone and long preceding the Bush election, the decade of ongoing low-level warfare with him (and yes, it was a real war we were in, if a low-grade one), by Saddam's refusal to live by his surrender agreement and his amazing efforts to apparently convince everyone he was hiding big heapin' piles of WMD's, and by the death of 3000 Americans on 9/11. "War atmosphere" needed little assistance. You want a replay of quotes from Dems in the late 90's? It would be a pointless waste of millions and millions of pixels, but I don't see how you can honestly say that the "war atmosphere" was a Bush invention. It was a Saddam invention, running clear back to the invasion of Kuwait, reinforced by absolutely everyone including those Dems. Their president made it seem that the nation was in imminent danger. Bull again. Bush said over and over that we couldn't wait for it to become an imminent danger to address it, not that it was an imminent danger. Let's keep the details straight here. It was that decade of drumbeat and those 3000 dead that made it seem imminent in people's minds, not speeches about not waiting for it to become imminent. Saying that the Dems didn't have the spines to stand up to Bush is going back to what I've already said--the "We're too stooooopid and incompetent to be held responsible for our words and actions" argument. That evil mind rays zapped back into the past made them say all those things and believe all those things in the 90's, and warped the reporting of the world intel community for even longer. That Saddam was really a peaceful old codger tending to his flower gardens, just coincidentally fertilized with the bodies of hundreds of thousands of his victims. That's an argument that absolutely requires the Evil Omnipotent Mastermind Villain with time-bending superpowers as a scapegoat. Even on his best day with Rove at his side, Bush as an Omnipotent Mastermind is not something I'm buying. Posted by: Tully at November 17, 2005 06:16 PMRyan said: You're emphasizing John Kerry's possible motives as a means to circumvent debate over determining our progress in Iraq. In logic this is known as the "ad hominem" fallacy. I usually appreciate your logic bk, but your irrational hatred for John Kerry is interfering with your ability to discuss this issue. Then bk said: Or maybe you're trying to muster support for John Kerry's laundry list. Oh yeah, and maybe Kerry is not doing this as a prelude to a 2008 run. Then bk also said: since you are advocating Kerry's plan on its merits
Get this straight bk: I could care less about John Kerry. I don't want to dispute John Kerry. PLEASE GET OVER JOHN KERRY!!! Your singular obsession with John Kerry is the very definition of "OBTUSE" you and Tully's apparent "word of the day" for this thread. I love you and Tully's youthful outrage. I think it's great, but try and pay attention to the arguments put to you. Okay, so you think John Kerry sucks, I'm cool with that... NOW GET OVER IT! It is incredibly frustrating to argue with someone who is willfully ignorant of the subject under debate. Which was the merits and problems of defining a timeline, milestones, and objectives in Iraq. This is something, as I (and Blue Jean) have stated before, BOTH REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS HAVE PROPOSED IN CONGRESS. So it's not just all about John Kerry. If you and Tully want to expand this argument into everything else in the world. That's fine, but don't expect me to respond to how this issue is related to your mother not buying you a pony when you were twelve. I don't care. I've had a few drinks and I don't have the patience for your crap any more. I haven't had any drinks at all and I'm running out of patience with yours, Ryan. If you're having trouble getting your points across, go back to the basics of your argument and rephrase. We're not as dumb as you seem to believe--but there's a lot of "talking past" each other going on here, some it appears to be intentional, and my frustration and Brian's with you is related to that. If you're not able to express your concepts clearly and directly so that the audience understands them, you're not saying much no matter how many words you use, or how many syllables they have. Once y'all start arguing about the divergent details of mutual misunderstandings related to nebulous conceptual points it's obvious that communication left the building with Elvis. It is incredibly frustrating to argue with someone who is willfully ignorant of the subject under debate. Which was the merits and problems of defining a timeline, milestones, and objectives in Iraq. This is something, as I (and Blue Jean) have stated before, BOTH REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS HAVE PROPOSED IN CONGRESS. Indeed it is. So why don't you go read the legislation in question before calling others ignorant? I have. It's symbolic. If it were substantive, the "timetable" version would be disastrous, and the alternate "guideline" version would be inhibiting. Both border on micromanagement of the military functions of the executive by Congress, or would if they were anything but posturing, with no legal weight behind them. Even with legal weight, they'd be highly suspect as to enforceability under seperation of powers. That's all before we get to what kind of "message" they would send to our enemies--and our troops, and the endangered Iraqis who are most directly affected of all. As for youthful outrage, mine's been gone for twenty years now, and I'm willing to wager I've a few years on you. As for what "the subject under debate" is, verb. sap.--it's not your thread and what's on topic or relevant is entirely up to the thread originator, who has complete editorial discretion over thread contents and participants. You seem to be going out of your way to be commandeering, offended, and offensive. So chill out and try again, guys. Start with the basics and work through it until you hit the divergence. I actually want to hear the discussion (I'm even willing to open another thread for it) but charging headlong into verbosely querulous opacity does nothing for anyone. Flame wars may be held elsewhere. Thank you for not mentioning John Kerry. Posted by: Ryan Somma at November 18, 2005 12:38 PM |
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