Bush: playing politics
I found this via Pajamas Media today, with the following tagline: Question: “If President Bush had [fired Rumsfeld] two, three, four months ago would [the midterms] have been different?” (RCP)
I clicked on the link, hoping to find a discussion that might be a jumping-off place for a post of my own about the subject. But all I saw there was a single sentence, an echo of the question.
So I’ll take up the gauntlet and give a nice, hedgy answer: maybe.
I don’t think things would have been substantially different. Despite the sound bite of “this was all about the war,” it really wasn’t. It was about the war and the people’s perceptions of it, to be sure. But it was about a lot of other things as well, including corruption in Congress and inadequate handling of it (so, what else is new?), conservative disgruntlement with the current administration and Congress, the usual historical change of Congress during a President’s second term, relentless media spin, and Britney Spears’s impending divorce (oops, I guess that didn’t get announced till after the election. My bad.)
But if Bush had canned Rumsfeld earlier, it might have made a partial difference, and that might have been enough to change the outcome of a few close races here and there.
I don’t think it’s because of Rumsfeld himself, either, although he certainly had become a highly criticized and polarizing figure. I think it was more the perception given by Bush’s retention of Rumsfeld–and I believe it’s a correct perception–which is that Bush is one stubborn and unresponsive fellow.
That’s not just a perception; it appears to be the truth, a truth that’s been known for a long time. Bush digs in, he is very loyal to people and doesn’t switch horses easily, and of course he’s not the great communicator. That stubbornness of his is a double-edged sword; it makes him resolute but inflexible. He is the antithesis of someone like Clinton, for example, who almost never met a principle he couldn’t change if the polls indicated it might be politically expedient for him.
Bush’s natural tendency towards stubbornness and decisiveness–not a bad thing in a leader, unless it’s carried to extremes, as it has been at times in his case–may also be a reaction to Clinton, and reflect Bush’s deep desire to be the Un-Clinton. That he is, but it’s an overcorrection. And almost nowhere is that fact in greater evidence than in his handling of the timing of the actual Rumsfeld firing.
Not only did Bush not do what would have been politically expedient, which is to have gotten rid of Rumsfeld at least three or four months ago (to go back to RCP’s question), but he didn’t even let the press and the people know that Rumsfeld was on his way out even after it actually had been decided, which was apparently before this election.
This is, if you believe Bush’s story; I’m sure many don’t. I do, because it’s consistent with his personality. It tells you that Bush was willing to shoot himself (and his fellow Republicans) in the foot in order to demonstrate both loyalty and his un-Clintonian, non-pandering-to-politics, bona fides. That sort of behavior has cost him votes, approval ratings, the epithet “nonresponsive,” and the ire of fellow Republicans.
Now that the other shoe has dropped and the Democrats are in charge of Congress, Bush seems to have changed his tune a bit. So has the media, in a subtle but noticeable way. Now that they have gotten what they wanted–a Democratic victory–they can afford to be ever so slightly magnanimous towards Bush, who’s seen as mortally wounded. At least, that’s what I discern in articles such as this one form today’s San Francisco Chronicle, entitled, “An immediate and dramatic change in Bush’s tone.” The article states:
In words and tone, Bush conveyed an unfamiliar flexibility and rare willingness to work with his political adversaries Wednesday on his war strategy.
It goes on:
On Wednesday, [Bush] lamented that “somehow it seeped into (people’s) conscience that, you know, my attitude was just simply stay the course.”
It could be because Bush himself used the phrase “stay the course” dozens of times to explain his administration’s steadfast determination not to abandon the mission in the face of catastrophic circumstances in Iraq.
These two sentences sum up the problem between Bush and the people, and between the media and Bush. It’s true that it did seep into people’s conscience (sic: consciousnesses?) that Bush was inflexible. The problem wasn’t so much his oft-repeated desire to stay the course, but the perception that he couldn’t (or wouldn’t) adjust the details of that course in order to find a more effective way of getting from point A to point B. The media had a role in getting that perception across, but Bush didn’t do anywhere near enough to counter it.
And then there’s the phrase “catastrophic circumstances in Iraq.” The Chronicle takes it as a given that the situation in Iraq warrants that particular adjective rather than one a bit less–well, less catastrophic. I’d hate to have seen how the current-day writers and editors of a paper such as the Chronicle would have dealt with the early years of World War II, or the Civil War, or any number of other conflicts. Fortunately, they weren’t around then.
“President Bush is the type of person everyone would like to work for. He’s not going to fire you on a whim and he’ll stand up for you if you make an honest mistake. As a fact he doesn’t fire anyone ‘without their permission’. Don’t you wish more employers were that loyal to the employee’s?”
I guess your right if you don’t mind your boss killing 100s of thousands of people in an attempt to keep his job.
Judith Apter Klinghoffer
POST ELECTIONS SHIFT IN US FOREIGN POLICY
Elections matter. Rumsfeld is finally out but replacing him is James Baker’s man, Robert Gates. I must admit I am less than thrilled. G. Friedman of Starfor does an insightful job figuring out the meaning of the change. You will find it in its entirety bellow. It adds up to one thing – another attempt to appease Iran. It will fail. The only question is at what price?
Back to Iraq
By George Friedman
(…)
In short, the group will recommend a radical change in the U.S. approach not only to Iraq, but to the Muslim world in general.
http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/31650.html
“[T]he people’s collective conscience” may be what you’re looking for there.
It is bad to see Rumsfeld replaced by a potential appeaser of Islam. But Allen is yet unproved. On the other hand, a shift to the Democrats basically brings the hippies into power.
Red – what does appeasing Iran entail?
Neo – fair analysis – but, for the umpteenth time – there is absolutley no relation to the events of the Second World War and the invasion and occupation of Iraq. And Bush in no Churchill and the threat from Islamic ‘fascists’ does not warrant the hype, and certainly not a war that exasperates the problem – nor does it have anything at all to do with Iraq – except, as we all know to provide more recruits to the cause of challenging American and Israeli domination of the region. Now that the neoconservative agenda has been thoroughly discredited by the election, now might be the time to tone down the ridiculous propaganda.
The choice of adjectives?
Take your pick – but I’d rather hear how you think a continued U.S occupation of Iraq is going to make things better.
You seem to be implying that Iraq isn’t that bad.
If so, why?
Are you listening to tricky Dick?
You will also notice that in a few weeks there will be another person to take Rumsfeld’s place.
I wouldn’t have given in either. Few had anything particular against Rumsfeld. In fact, in many cases he was doing exactly what his detractors said they wanted someone to do. His speeches outlined pretty much what was talked about here and other pro-war circles (even the ones who are really unhappy with Iraq right now).
He was just the easiest target and it was relentless, now the next easiest target will be chosen. The tactic of repeating something over and over until it becomes true, unfortunately, works and the lefties are really great at it.
I’m sure some of the lefties will chime in with all sorts of great reasons why Rumsfeld had to go, yet again – mark my words: In a few weeks the only thing that will have changed is who they are hammering. And, of course, there will be great reasons.
You will never win. This is the same thing we see in appeasing a lot of the middle eastern countries. The goal was not to get rid of Rumsfeld – the goal is to get their people in power and sabotage the Repulicans. Anything less and you are wasting time trying to “triangulate”.
And to note, the Democrats and leftist know this – they never have and never will triangulate with the Republicans once they get in power.
I suspect that had Bush replaced Rumsfeld earlier, Move On would have simply moved on to their next target.
BTW, some of the Germans are getting nervous about what the new nicer congress will demand of them. It’s kind of fun to see them squirm.
Almost forgot–The comment on Iran neglects the Russian aspect of the problem.
“Appeaser this, appeaser that”, you’re all reading from the WW2 playbook and that war finished a long time ago. It’s got NOTHING to do with contemporary realities. For Christ’s sake, “adjust to win” – in yourspeak.
——
As for Rumsfeld ’tis better that the fatted calf be killed now’, after the election so as to appear that change has been taken on board, notice the word ‘appear’. ‘Cutting and Rumsfeld’before the election wouldn’t have done anything to forestall the deserved result.
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Why does the left call the MSM right and the right call the MSM left???????
—-
Stimpy..strcpy…- do you know what a no eye deer looks like? yeah look in the mirror.
Are you in touch with any sort of reality regarding the deeds of Mr Rumsfeld? He wasnt sacked because of his hard line, he was sacked because he basically lost the war. They all lost the war, (so far) but he had to be the fall guy. Get the facts about his running of the war and what’s laughingly referred to as the ‘rebuilding’. Get with the program furChrisesake.
Bravo Neo, and not just because I agree with your analysis in this post.
This is why you are the psychologist, and I’m just the amateur.
In war, you don’t exactly want your enemy to analyze your basic personality to such a degree that anything you do, can be analyzed and predicted based upon that basic matrix. You have a natural advantage when the other guy is uncertain as to what you will do, but with Bush, he is pretty predictable now, after all his previous actions.
And that is why, Bush won’t stall Rumsfield’s resignation, in order to get Bolton compromised. To Bush, that kind of weird backstabbing, deception campaign, is the kind of politicsl he refuses to engage in. Ya, he talks about compromise and what not, but it is ‘open’ compromise, it is not him deceiving and making fools out of people he negotiates with. Which means, really, they make fools out of him, if he won’t do it to them first. (Chirac did it, I’m not making this up)
Yes, Bush does compromise and he does seek to work with the other side, and this was true all the way back in 2000. Bush said he came to Washington hoping to change the tone. But how is he going to change the “tone” if he appears like a sissy and gives the Democrats everything they want (i.e. appeasing Kennedy and Demos with no Child left behind, Medicaid, etc)
But Bush has to get some position advantage from these compromises.What favors did he extort from kennedy for No Child? Nothing, Bush came away with nothing but years of Leftist media criticisement of No Child, blaming Bush. Bush doesn’t even use Rumsfield’s resignation in order to accrue political leverage and benefit. If Bush is already going to get rid of him, why doesn’t he hide this and then tell the Democrats that he wants something in return before he gets rid of Rumsfield?
He is going get rid of him anyways, why not get something in return? But this kind of political negotiation, is not something Bush either knows how to do, or is willing to do. Extortion, blackmail, leverage, intimidation, none are used by Bush. He wants to get rid of these tactics. But you can’t get rid of ethnic cleansing, if you aren’t willing to cleanse the ethnic cleansers. You can’t get rid of murderers, unless you murderer the murderers. And you can’t get rid of the Islamic Suicide Jihad, without terrorizing the terroists and dieing while fighting the terroists.
So when Bush came to DC and expected to change the tone, by not using the tone, the end result was set in stone already.
What did he expect, that Democrats would like him so much that they would just give him favors and power? That is not how humans work. The fact that Bush doesn’t seem to understand this, also affects his Iraq politicsl. He just isn’t willing to go hardcore, he still wants peace, prosperity, and honest negotiation.
I was never a big believer in honest negotiation with liars, thieves, and sickos.
If Nixon is the example of pure paranoia and dirt tricks
What did he expect, that Democrats would like him so much that they would just give him favors and power? That is not how humans work. The fact that Bush doesn’t seem to understand this, also affects his Iraq politicsl. He just isn’t willing to go hardcore, he still wants peace, prosperity, and honest negotiation.
I was never a big believer in honest negotiation with liars, thieves, and sickos.
If Nixon is the example of pure paranoia and dirt tricks, and Clinton is the example of pure pragmatism and opinion populist polling, then Bush is the quintessential… do gooder.
You know the do-gooder, he who will turn the other cheek, not kill the killers, give mercy to the merciless. The weird thing is, he wasn’t like that after 9/11, something was firing him up. And now we see it again, he like morphs into something else when BAD THINGS happen. He might not know exactly what he should do, but if he cuts the orders to the military to solve a problem, the military will solve it for him. But of course, he can’t solve diplomatic problems with the military.
Bush is great at using the military to solve problems, and his natural disinclination to use force (intimidation) to get his way, conflicts with his very nature.
When he is angry, when his duty requires him to use force and the iron fist, he becomes much more effective a leader. The best thing the Democrats can do for America is screw things up so bad that it forces Bush to go ballistic.
When will you learn, you ppl? When? You can’t learn anything from WW2, like “appeasement doesn’t work against fascists”, because WW2 was not like Iraq! Even a Fin can see that! Nothing in the past is like Iraq, so stop looking at the past! The past is past! Get out of Iraq now, or you’ll be bogged down just like Vietnam! Have you forgotten Vietnam?!
When something goes wrong, someone has to pay. Someone had to pay for Iraq not turning out as advertised, but no one paid, just a lot of Medals of Freedom passed out. I think that’s the main reason the Democrats got the votes they got eve in 2004, and more so in 2006.
If Bush had fired Rumsfeld six months ago, I do believe the GOP would still be controlling both houses. If he had fired him last week, then the GOP might have been able to hold on to the Senate.
But my perception of the situation is not going to make sense to anyone who doesn’t believe the vote was about Iraq, and then who cite Lieberman as the example. To me, Lieberman was just the proverbial exception to the rule. In terms of everyone I know, the War was the main issue.
The analogies to other wars don’t really fit. First, we have been in Iraq three months longer than our entire involvement in World War Two against Germany (11 Dec 41-8 May 45). In fact, in another month or so, we will have been embroiled in Iraq longer than our entire involvement in World War Two. Second, of course, Hitler declared war on us.
The Civil War was another defensive war, and also a war to preserve the Union. By the end of next March, OIF will have lasted as long as that one, too.
Of course, I do not think Iraq was the only issue. The Republican party as it is currently run caters to its fundamentalist base by advocating a lot of interference in privacy (including reproductive rights, and derivatives thereof, like stem cell research). Most Americans, however, I would argue, are natural conservatives, they don’t want people telling them what to do (perhaps our greatest strength as a nation), and that’s another reason why people will vote against the GOP. And that’s really what this election was. Votes against. Not votes for.
“He was just the easiest target and it was relentless, now the next easiest target will be chosen. The tactic of repeating something over and over until it becomes true, unfortunately, works and the lefties are really great at it.”
I’m on the left(some would say), and I completely agree with that.
For probably completetly different reasons – but I think thats a fair assessment off it. Less the mandatory ‘leftist’bit, the obligatory nonsense without merit or meaningfulness.
But hey – you did just get your ass spanked hard in the elections – so I suppose your entitled to let off some steam…
Apart from that, I’d add that it was not a leftist or liberal campaign to have Rumsfeld removed from his post – there were among those voices ex-Generals, conservative pundits, and as you say pro-war people.
But ultimately, and again I agree with your assessment that the ‘left’ wants to take down a number of figureheads in the Iraq ‘disaster'(thats my adjective and I think thats quite appropriate), the war has been rejected not because of it’s failure in terms of stated goals, but because it was an illegitimate, and unecessary war. I think you can see this clearly in just about any national poll regarding questions about government duplicity in hyping the threats Saddam posed to the U.S etc, etc.
And, quite rightly, in a debacle of this magnitude, heads will roll. As they should. And I’d like to see alot more heads roll – not for revenge or vindication – but I think it would set a powerful example for the future conduct of the Executive and Congress and hopefully create a dialouge about the role of NGOs in creating, and unduly and inappropriately influencing U.S foreign policy decisions.
Wishful thinking no doubt – but there are compelling reasons to make people acountable for their actions beyond any left-wing conspiracys to destory the very fabric of the American society as is often suggested.
But of course the left wing conspiracy IS out to “destory the very fabric of American society”, right? I mean, left?
“you did just get your ass spanked hard in the elections”
Oh, cmon. Everybody knows this election was stolen. The left knows it especially because they stole it. Let’s just admit the obvious.
President Bush is the type of person everyone would like to work for. He’s not going to fire you on a whim and he’ll stand up for you if you make an honest mistake. As a fact he doesn’t fire anyone ‘without their permission’. Don’t you wish more employers were that loyal to the employee’s?
I think that Rumsfeld didn’t step down (resign?) before the election because it was not necessarily a foregone conclusion that he would depart at all.
Had the election not been such a disaster for the Republicans and their Iraq policies, Rumsfeld might very well have stayed on. This, to me, is a reasonable explanation as to why Bush et al. were willing to give up any possible election gains that would have resulted from Rumsfeld leaving office before the election. Out of loyalty and a desire to “stay the course,” Bush arguably did not want Rumsfeld to go. Gates being ready to step in may have been a contingency plan put into play only if the Democrats’ margin of victory would amount to a clear national mandate for a change in the handling of the Iraq war. Even to someone as stubborn and loyal as Bush, this truth became undeniably evident only because of the election outcome, and only then did Rumsfeld have to go.
“And, quite rightly, in a debacle of this magnitude, heads will roll. As they should. And I’d like to see alot more heads roll – not for revenge or vindication – but I think it would set a powerful example for the future conduct…
Here, once again, is why it must be sweet to be a Democrat. You can vote for the invasion, reverse your stance when the polls go south on the thing, then act as if you were never for the invasion in the first place and call for heads to roll for the people who maintained their conviction on a difficult decision.
If I were a Democrat politician right now, I’d be celebrating by getting stone drunk and driving my luxury sedan into a light pole on the capitol mall and blaming it all on prescription medication.
God, you gotta love that party.
Bye Bye Bolton.
The republican senate is going to hang
the boyman president out to dry in the Texas sun with buzzard laden skies.
“You seem to be implying that Iraq isn’t that bad.
If so, why?”
Hey Anon, why don’t you explain to us exactly what is going SO badly in Iraq (excluding the PR war at home). What’s the metric you’re using to determine how bad things are in Iraq? I’d like to hear it with comparison and statistics, linked and all that. Thanks.
While you’re at it, perhaps you can explain, by your standard, why things are going well on our roads (over 40,000 die every year for decades now, no big deal made over that).
Sorry,but I didn’t see so much ignorance from likes of Loki/Anonymous/Loko , like everything begun with Irak .You want to say that violence in Sudan that slipped into Chad is because of Irak?
No , I really can’t connect the dots,why Israel gived up on it’s settlements to end with one of their’s being taken prisoner,isn’t it about apeasement?
Didn’t they left Lebanon in 2000?Like there isn’t violence from islamists in India,Thailand?Did the US hold some arabic coutry right before 9/11?And Somalia is now some freaking idilic heaven.
Come on ,bring some apologistic comments.If it weren’t for those you probably would say something like “They deserve it because
crusaders executed Saladin’s knights” or other crap.
I don’t think it takes to be neocon to see those.
Harry – I’m not a democrat.
Your comment seems to be a common refrain about Dems though – don’t know how much truth there is to that or the context – didn’t alot of Democrats vote against the war and then vote to fund it after Bush made the unilateral decision to invade?
Regardless – under the circumstances and the wave of Neoconservative inspired propaganda that saturated the debate, I don’t see much of a problem with the minority party lending support to the ‘threat’ – and then as the truth became more apparent changing their minds.
But, yeah – it probably is sweet to be a Democrat right now, I’d agree with that…
PR war, Douglas?
For me I didn’t see a PR war – I saw an American media generally underreporting the carnage in Iraq – and being castigated by a typically undemocratic right wing that felt that Americans don’t need to know the brutality and lack of direction in the war(if not the complete illegality of the war and it’s implications for the future security of the U.S).
There are a number of links I could provide from reliable sources that you could question, reject, accpet whatever you like – but you can do that yourself.
But you don’t seem to be too inclined. I can only assume that by your refusal to answer my question before posing your own…
What is going so well, exactly, that a military occupation of a soveriegn nation without a valid and legal pretext should continue – even while military officials on the ground have made it clear that U.S/British forces are making the situation worse.
I’m sure you’ll be anxiously awaiting the results of the Baker commission to see what the implications for staying/withdrawing from Iraq will be.
Or maybe you won’t.
Yeah – you probably won’t…
The George Friedman article (see the link in the very first comment above) is very worth reading.
On point that stuck in my mind: “…More precisely, in our view, the Iranians decided that the political weakness of George W. Bush, … In other words, the balanced coalition government that the United States wanted was no longer attractive to the Iranians and Iraqi Shia. They wanted more.”
In my opinion, as we look back 20 or 50 years from now, a large part of “the political weakness of George W. Bush..” will be seen as the result of an endless drumbeat of untruthful sloganeering by the Democratic leadership 2003-2006. As Neo says, W. deserves part of the blame, because he and the administration were never able to give the public a clear response to the sloganeering.
BTW, Neo, something I’ve been meaning to ask for a while — I tend to check a few blogs regularly – yours, Instapundit, Powerline – all good but all pretty much coming from a point of view that I strongly agree with. As satisfying as these are to read, I know that I have to consider other, reasonable points of view.
Can you recommend some “thoughful liberal” or “thoughtful center-left” sources of information?
best regards,
SteveR
Anon 11.10.06:
“Regardless – under the circumstances and the wave of Neoconservative inspired propaganda that saturated the debate, I don’t see much of a problem with the minority party lending support to the ‘threat’ – and then as the truth became more apparent changing their minds.”
The threat they signed off on wasnt solely the WMD issue. They changed their minds on many issues regarding Iraq:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021002-2.html
Humor Break:::::
Rumsfeld Goodbye Video on YouTube
“The Chronicle takes it as a given that the situation in Iraq warrants that particular adjective rather than one a bit less–well, less catastrophic.”
how many Iraq citizens dying every day neo? It isnt a catastrophe in neo con land but it sure is in Baghdad. How many dead in civil war? how many in Iraq?
A lot, if Bush gives the Marines kill on sight orders for a few needy people.
Can you recommend some “thoughful liberal” or “thoughtful center-left” sources of information?
best regards,
SteveR
Steve Rosenbach | Homepage | 11.10.06 – 11:10 am | #
There’s Michael Totten, Michael Yon, and oh, those classical liberal guys, Victor Davis Hanson private papers and so forth.
There’s also Wonkette, if you like the inane and the humorous by Democrats, Insta advertises for her too.
I feel like the trolls are winning. They remind me of psyche patients who have enormous, almost superhuman strength. Regular people get tired of rehashing the same point over and over. But not the trolls. Having their nonsense echo over and over gives them great pleasure. Seeing it in print. Seeing others react to it. It’s just such a rush. Nothing else in life gives such great pleasure- boring job, dissatisfying relationships. It all pales to reciting your screed online.
douglas
“While you’re at it, perhaps you can explain, by your standard, why things are going well on our roads (over 40,000 die every year for decades now, no big deal made over that).”
Who says things are going well on our roads? Its a terrible and grim situation and attempts to do something about have been fought by the repugs and corporate interests.
But to be consistent maybe you should advocate the following:
(1) A nationwide program to bug the phones of anybody who has ever
consumed alcohol and other such alchoterrorists,
(2) the torture of all captured drunk-drivers (regardless of whether they are drinking domestic or foreign brew), and
(3) the invasion and occupation of Anheuser-Busch Inc (there are no good targets at Red Hook).
Trolls. They don;t exist unless you allow them to.
Mark,
By your measure then, we should then allow upwards of 10 to 12 9/11’s per year before we take action on terrorism vs. car wrecks (which by the way, are not entirely drunk-driver related), since it’s just about deaths and not about control over society.
Holmes
It wasn’t my measure it was yours.
I was simply commenting satirically upon the way folks like yourself grossly overreact to certain problems and thereby exacerbate them.
Oh and I almost forgot. As you pointed out, and just to be consistent with the manner in which you handle problems, you should advocate the same treatment for all cell-phone users (those commy bastards).
Neo,
I’d speculate further. Both Sec. Rumsfeld and the President have business backgrounds. Both had success at fairly high levels.
Good managers are notoriously goal driven. They develop MBOs and plans for everything. This trait seems to fit Sec. Rumsfeld especially. That’s why I was somewhat puzzled by the claims from the left of inadequate planning. I can understand that some might not agree with the plan, but it’s inconceivable that we did not plan.
Enter politics. Business, especially at high levels, is bitterly political. Hence, CEOs usually play their cards very close to their vests. The Board can’t hang you for what you haven’t committed to. Hence, CEOs often publicly commit only to the most abstract goals. They don’t want to have their hands tied by micromanagers. I think the President is very much in that school. Thus, we the people (the Board of Directors) only got the vaguest of commitments–victory, stay the course, etc.
I think the ambiguity finally got him. He needed better PR. If he could have packaged and sold a high level plan after the 2004 election, the midterms might have played out differently for both the President and the Sec Def.
No doubt, the Republicans also had other problems, too, that could have sunk them.
“we have been in Iraq three months longer than our entire involvement in World War Two against Germany (11 Dec 41-8 May 45)”
Steve, US “involvement” in Germany did not come to end 8 may 45. Germany was occupied by US troops for several decades, and only this allowed success in nation building there and prevented Soviets to invade the country. US military are still there. The same with South Korea and Japan.
Mark,
You are an angry child, but of course you know that.
Pedants call packaging rhetoric. See Aristotle for an argument about its relationship to politics.
Get over yourself.
Neo, if you are ever able to transfer your blogging popularity to your practice, you could have so much business, you wouldn’t know when to breath. Assuming you haven’t retired already.
I think the ambiguity finally got him. He needed better PR. If he could have packaged and sold a high level plan after the 2004 election, the midterms might have played out differently for both the President and the Sec Def.
No doubt, the Republicans also had other problems, too, that could have sunk them.
Old Dad | 11.10.06 – 2:11 pm | #
Either you are kicking butt in the war or you have to kick butt here at home, but if you lose both like the Repubs, then you are screwed.
Yes, Bush has needed PR Dick Morris style since 2000.
Steve, US “involvement” in Germany did not come to end 8 may 45.
What was the US casualty rate after May 8, 1945? I know the German guerillas (Werewolves) never materialized in force. No, the Germans just gave up after the surrender and went about trying to rebuild their lives.
steve doesn’t want casualties. So, if you do as I and Sergey have recommended, public executions, you won’t have American casualties in the numbers that we have seen, because the enemy would be dead and terrorized into catatonia. Of course, steve isn’t for solving the casualty problem, so what is left? What is left is retreat, steve wants to retreat, that way, he gets his problem solved without having to kill anyone.
Weird position, in a way.
“It seems unreasonable that a series of successes, extending through half a year, and clearing more than a hundred thousand square miles of country, should help us so little, while a single half-defeat should hurt us so much.” -Abraham Lincoln
Antietam, or before it anyways. General McClellan, another loyal and famous Democrat. Upholding the honor of the Democrat party it seems, by preaching pacifism, appeasement, and obstruction. Ha. Man, some things just don’t change.
“There are a number of links I could provide from reliable sources that you could question, reject, accpet whatever you like – but you can do that yourself. But you don’t seem to be too inclined. I can only assume that by your refusal to answer my question before posing your own…” -Anonymous
No, I saw that you made a statement, which you take as fact, and asked you to back it up instead of asking us to do your homework, so your answer is to try it again? Right. I want to know who your ‘reliable’ sources are. I want to know how YOU define success and failure, since you’ve elected to put it into that terminology (I didn’t). Let’s hear it.
“…even while military officials on the ground have made it clear that U.S/British forces are making the situation worse.” -Anonymous
Who, exactly? John Murtha isn’t a military official on the ground.
Ymar- “steve wants to retreat, that way, he gets his problem solved without having to kill anyone.”
I think you meant Kill any more Americans. A whole lotta poor brown people on the other side of theo world are gonna die and suffer if we just retreat as Steve desires.
Steve, number of German casualties, both military and civilian, for last half year of WWII exeeded 1 million, and all major cities were just heaps of rubble. A this level of destruction their will to resist was completely broken. And in Iraq the operation was very surgical, even party apparatus was left largely intact.
I do believe another thing steve favored, was for the American military to stay in their bases and not go out on patrols. That way, no IEDs. Course, that is like the New Orleans police department staying in their homes when Katrina hit, but still.
For someone who has been in the Marines for many years, Steve is not all that aggressive. Grim at BF said the same about Zinni, a Marine that hates war. One of those rarities, surprising, but not perhaps unexpected.
Daniel Pipes proposed exactly this: go to desert, as deterence against Iran, and secure borders to prevent weapon smuggling and foreign jihadi infiltration. Go hell out of Bagdad and Sunni triangle and be relatively safe.
Anyone can claim to be a Marine on the internet. Funny how anti-war “ex-troopers” like Micah Wright and Jesse Macbeth turn out to be frauds in the end.
And let’s not forget Jimmy Massey, who at least honorably served, before dishonorably stabbing them in the back with lies that, by pure luck, turned out to be provably false. If Massey had just stuck to stories that no reporters had already covered, he could have been testifying at Rumsfeld’s war crimes trial right now.
“…There’s Michael Totten, Michael Yon, and oh, those classical liberal guys, Victor Davis Hanson private papers and so forth….”
Thanks ymarsakar – I already read all those guys regularly – and I thought they were more right-of-center. These are the guys I almost always agree with.
Maybe I should have said, “thoughtful Democrat”? 🙂
Best regards,
SteveR
If Michael Totten is right of center, then Huffington must be center left.
Totten once talked about in 2003 a bunch of Leftists and liberals leaving the Democrat party.
Link
You have to scroll down to the end.
Oliver Kamm:
George W. Bush is truly the president, and soon once more the candidate, of the finest ideals of the liberal Left, and this blog accordingly supports him.
Roger L. Simon himself:
The Democrats should start looking for some more interesting candidates than the pack of low-rent losers they are presently proffering…. Or this lifetime Democrat is going to sit this one out. (And I’m certain I won’t be the only one.)
Good luck trying to find any Democrats that haven’t bailed yet, who are still on the level.