Decision ‘08

Politicizing The Iraq War - Both Sides Guilty

Eleanor Clift is half right - Karl Rove IS politicizing the Iraq War when he makes comments like this:

Moments after learning he had escaped indictment in the CIA leak investigation case, Rove told New Hampshire Republicans that Democratic critics of the war like John Kerry and John Murtha “give the green light to go to war, but when it gets tough, they fall back on that party’s old platform of cutting and running. They may be with you for the first few bullets, but they won’t be there for the last tough battles.”

Clift is on safe ground in condemning that statement; it’s not fair to basically accuse one party of having a platform of cowardice (we should save that jibe for the French). Unfortunately, Eleanor is Eleanor, and she continues, to steadily worse effect:

It’s appalling that an administration led by chicken hawks dares to build an election strategy based on lecturing combat veterans, but it is devilishly clever, and it might work. The Swift Boat veterans destroyed Kerry in 2004; and in 2002, losing three limbs in Vietnam didn’t save Georgia Sen. Max Cleland from attacks on his patriotism. Rove told the GOP faithful that if the Democrats were in charge, Iraq would fall to the terrorists and Zarqawi would not be dead. As offensive as those words are, Rove is doing his job, which is sliming the Democrats so Republicans can cling to power on Capitol Hill. He is politicizing the war for partisan political gain, a strategy that could backfire if events on the ground in Iraq deteriorate.

Doesn’t it ever occur to opponents of the war that smearing Republicans as chicken hawks is a poor method of protesting Republican smears? Then, in an article whose ostensible purpose is to reveal the nefarious Republican politicizing of the war, Eleanor treats us to the following:

The idea is to corner the Democrats into taking a stand that could hurt them in November. A yes vote angers the Democratic base, which is increasingly antiwar; a no vote invites charges of cut and run.

Kerry is two years late in declaring he was wrong to vote for the war, and now he’s playing to the party’s antiwar base in the hope of resurrecting his presidential campaign.

Hmmm…Kerry’s playing to the party’s antiwar base in the hope of resurrecting his presidential campaign? Why - that sounds like - like - like he’s politicizing the war for partisan gain!

This column is poor by even Eleanor’s standards - contradictions abound and arguments undermine other arguments made just one sentence prior. The John Kerry proposal is to bring the vast majority of the troops home by the end of the year, is it not? Yet it is somehow unfair to refer to this as cutting and running:

The GOP is gleefully framing Kerry’s amendment to bring the troops home by the end of this year as a choice between victory and a treasonous running away. None of the other big-name Democrats want to get behind Kerry’s plan because they’re also running for president, and they’ve got their own half-baked ideas. An honest reckoning on Iraq means choosing among bad and less-bad options, which don’t stir voter enthusiasm. There are no good options. People of good will can disagree about what to do next, but no one, except for the most blinkered Bush partisans, think Iraq is anything but a disaster.

Talk about projection (and this within days of the government being fully formed and al-Zarqawi killed). People of good will can disagree, but only an idiot disagrees with me. John Kerry proposes to bring the troops home quickly, but he’s not cutting and running. Karl Rove is the prince of evil for politicizing the war, but John Kerry’s proposal is aimed at the antiwar base in hopes of reviving his presidential prospects.

One frequently offered definition of insanity is to hold ideas in direct contradiction to be simultaneously true. If so, Eleanor, medical attention may be quickly needed…

11 Responses to “Politicizing The Iraq War - Both Sides Guilty”

1 peter Says:
June 17th, 2006 at 7:25 am
The more striking thing in Rove’s speech was when he said that Republicans will spend more and Democrats will spend less.

Given that government spending has grown more in the Bush administration than any previous administration since LBJ, Rove’s statement is risible. However, it’s the modern day equivalent of Goebbel’s big lie: if you repeat something often enough, people will believe it.
2 fatman Says:
June 17th, 2006 at 9:21 am
I didn’t see a transcript of Rove’s speech, so I don’t know the context of the remark. If Rove was attacking all Democrats, then Clift may have a point. If, on the other hand, he was attacking specific Democrats such as Kerry, Murtha, Pelosi, Reid, Durbin, Kennedy or just about any other Democrat in the House or Senate leadership, then he’s absolutely right.
3 Muffin the Cat Says:
June 17th, 2006 at 1:08 pm
Mark,

You are so correct that both sides are politicizing the war to obtain an advantage with the American public. As I mentioned yesterday, the Dems shot themselves in the foot over this issue earlier this week. They are in a tough spot here. Which side is abusing the war more is a matter of opinion.

This article also reinforces my opinion concerning the lack of good “critical” editorial writing in today’s media. A ”good” editorial writer can come after both sides very well regardless of their personal viewpoint. In my opinion, the today’s editorial writers are no more than “political” hacks. I have found this situation very sad.

The Kansas City Star is no exception. The editorial board is very much on the left side of the political spectrum, which they openly admit and it shows in their editorials. They have no problem criticizing the “right” on issues but it is a snowy day in July when they openly come after a Democrat. An example is when they correctly castigated Judge Moore for failing to remove the Ten Commandments monument but nary a word when the Mayor of San Francisco openly defied the law and married gays a few years ago. I will give them some credit because they did ask for President Clinton to resign over his affair and when he perjured himself under oath. Both sides are equally guilty on many issues. The media in general has difficulty criticizing their own.

In my opinion, this lack of good “critical” editorial writing has led to the further polarization of the American public. Both parties are already very good at polarizing their constituents. Reasoned discussion just does not exist very much in our media and I feel this is detrimental to our culture and causes more problems than it solves. I do not read Ann Coulter very much because she is just too snotty and nasty.

One reason I come to this web site is because you maintain good credible reasoned discourse on both sides even though you like me are on the “right”. You also attract numerous well thought out reasoned excellent comments from the “left” with people such as Peter.

Another reason you have earned the esteemed Muffin Paw Print of Approval.
4 Mark Says:
June 17th, 2006 at 1:49 pm
Welll, thanks so much…and thanks for being a regular contributor here in the comments, as well…
5 peter Says:
June 17th, 2006 at 6:44 pm
Thank you, Muffin, I appreciate that, as do our two cats, Raisin and MoJo (not to be confused with MoDo) –

best rgds
Peter
6 Cindy Says:
June 18th, 2006 at 7:30 am
I, and anyone else with eyes, have to be skeptical that a person that had two 500 pound bombs dropped on his head would look so good in his nicely framed “death” photo. My dear friend Michael Berg whose son, Nicholas, was allegedly beheaded by al-Zarqawi had the unmitigated nerve to go on national TV and say that, no, it did not make him feel better that this person was killed because he knows that it won’t bring Nicholas back and in making al-Zarqawi a martyr it will probably only increase the violence. Violence is a cycle that can be stopped by stopping violence. Michael, who is running for Congress on the Green Party ticket in Delaware knows that our diseased democracy really killed his son, anyway.
7 Mark Says:
June 18th, 2006 at 9:06 am
Your e-mail address says CindySheehan, and that’s where your web page points - why do I doubt it? Certainly not from your ludicrous logic - you’ve nailed that part of the impersonation…
8 Muffin the Cat Says:
June 18th, 2006 at 9:25 am
From Cindy

our diseased democracy

Funny, I thought we lived in a representative Republic. Did I miss the memo somewhere?
9 Hokie Explorer Says:
June 18th, 2006 at 7:25 pm
Withdrawing from Iraq would produce a significantly bloodier civil war than what currently exists. I think the result would be a fragmented Iraq with political boundaries drawn on top of ethnic ones; the kurds in the north and the shiites in the south. Sunnis would pretty much get fu**ed over because they don’t have the numbers, and they don’t have the oil. Maybe we could get some sort of Bosnia-Herzegovina style genocide going with the Shiites all but exterminating Sunni arabs in Iraq. How these events would affect the region, the globe, and the United States is a big ? with the main impact probably being some sort of economic one relating to fossil fuels. I’m not worried about Iraq turning into some lame terrorist state; although, it could possibly because a hard-line theocracy.

Not withdrawing from Iraq results in an open-ended US commitment that will last as long as there is a like-minded president in office. Keeping US forces there will do several things: Keep the current Iraqi government in power because they won’t get coup’d out immediately with the US providing security and backing, continue to destabilize the region because there are countries there that don’t like a large US military force next door, taxpayers will have to continue to sink hundreds of billions of dollars into keeping half of the entire US military on the other side of the planet (dollars that in my opinion could be much better spent on other things like… homeland security LOLOLOL), continue to cost the lives of an infinite number of American soldiers.

Both of these options have their benefits and both of these options have their drawbacks. Now for my rant.

Personally, I like withdrawing better because I don’t like spending the money or the lives on it. “Spreading democracy” or “spreading freedom” sounds like an idealogical crusade to me and that is not the purpose of the military. I also think it is a bad strategy for trying to reduce the prevalence of extremism. I think it will create more extremism than it subdues simply because I’m not sure it is possible to democratize these countries to an extent that the people in them will soften their line. Also, the current government has been focusing on foreign policy and done fu** all for domestic policy other than making me pay more for my education and ranting about how gays will destroy marriage (which by the way is a waste of everyone’s time). Domestic policy should be the #1 priority of any responsible government.

That said, I really get angry when the records of veterans are trashed by people who never even served in the military or saw combat. Its real easy to say lets go to war, or lets pull out when you’re not the one whose life is on the line. Thats why I find it funny that the military can barely meet its recruiting goals when 51% or something of the country voted for Bush (and according to Bush for the war). As far as I’m concerned people shouldn’t be allowed to support a war until they are ready to go die for it; until then they can shut the fu** up.
10 Explore VT blog » Another Iraq post Says:
June 18th, 2006 at 7:30 pm
[…] I copied this comment over from one I wrote on decision08 because I tend to write long comments there that I should probably just write on my own blog… lol. Basically it was something about the debate this past week in Congress about withdrawing from Iraq. […]
11 disaster in iraq Says:
August 22nd, 2007 at 1:16 pm
disaster in iraq…

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