The Real Problem
By Mitch Berg
The DC/New York/LA political/media establishment has always hated W. At first it was because he, like Reagan, wasn’t really one of them. He beat the “smart” guy in 2000. He cut taxes and (regrettably) triangulated around them on spending. He beat the “smart” guy Kerry.
But why do they really hate him?
William McGurn Wthinks he knows why:
Here’s a hint: It’s not because of his failures. To the contrary, Mr. Bush’s disfavor in Washington owes more to his greatest success. Simply put, there are those who will never forgive Mr. Bush for not losing a war they had all declared unwinnable.
As I wrote a couple of years ago at the dawn of the surge, the Dems really only have two templates for a “successful” war: World War II (a big-government war won, to a great extent, by socialist means; universal service, government commanding the means of production, immense control over society) and Vietnam (which was a military defeat for the US, but a political bonanza for them. We’ll come back to that).
Outside those two comfort zones, I’m afraid Democrats don’t know what to make of things.
Here in the afterglow of the turnaround led by Gen. David Petraeus, it’s easy to forget what the smart set was saying two years ago — and how categorical they all were in their certainty. The president was a simpleton, it was agreed. Didn’t he know that Iraq was a civil war, and the only answer was to get out as fast as we could?
The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — the man who will be sworn in as vice president today — didn’t limit himself to his own opinion. Days before the president announced the surge, Joe Biden suggested to the Washington Post he knew the president’s people had also concluded the war was lost. They were, he said, just trying to “keep it from totally collapsing” until they could “hand it off to the next guy.”
For his part, on the night Mr. Bush announced the surge, Barack Obama said he was “not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq are going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse.”Three months after that, before the surge had even started, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pronounced the war in Iraq “lost.” These and similar comments, moreover, were amplified by a media echo chamber even more absolute in its sense of hopelessness about Iraq and its contempt for the president.
Another problem for the left is that the Vietnam template keeps getting more and more obsolete:
For many of these critics, the template for understanding Iraq was Vietnam — especially after things started to get tough. In terms of the wars themselves, of course, there is almost no parallel between Vietnam and Iraq: The enemies are different, the fighting on the ground is different, the involvement of other powers is different, and so on.
Still, the operating metaphor of Vietnam has never been military. For the most part, it is political. And in this realm, we saw history repeat itself: a failure of nerve among the same class that endorsed the original action.
As with Vietnam, with Iraq the failure of nerve was most clear in Congress. For example, of the five active Democratic senators who sought the nomination, four voted in favor of the Iraqi intervention before discovering their antiwar selves.
Making Dem leaders look like fools after doubling back on themselves; that is the ultimate crime.
January 21st, 2009 at 6:39 am
Actually, Mitch, it was more about stealing an election, dividing the country and screwing up the economy and leaving us with two wars.
But you go with that “not losing the Iraq war” thing. That’s good enough for wingnut logic. Plus reality just really sucks for you guys right now.
January 21st, 2009 at 7:16 am
I forget, Clown. Was it the part of Tribeca where all the libtards sit in overpriced restaurants and joke about how much they hate the red states, or was it the part of Tribeca with those HUGE FREAKING TOWERS that everyone bitched about destroying the architecture of Tribeca?
I get so confused.
And the terrs hit NYC because they knew it was full of liberal ninnies that’d wet their pants once the buzz died down and vote for someone like Kerry or Obama. If they’d tried to ram the tallest building in North Dakota (that’d be the Fargo Radisson), they’d have gotten shot down by the locals, who’d have then overthrown the Taliban themselves. Becasue who needs the government?
January 21st, 2009 at 7:50 am
I think part of the reason they hate(d) him so much is his “born-again” Christianity.
January 21st, 2009 at 9:39 am
Clownie still thinks Al Gore won in 2000. Silly clown.
January 21st, 2009 at 10:02 am
No Colleen, it really was the stupidness and incompetence.
So I guess “libral ninnies” must include most of the people in North Carolina, Indiana and Colorado. Not to mention most of the people in the US of A.
On the subject of pants-wetting, maybe you should recall that Angryclown and everybody else in New York went back to work every day after 9/11, when the rubble from the towers was still burning and some nutjob was sending anthrax through the mail. And you paranoid middle-America wingnuts were stocking up on duct tape and anthrax.
So stop with the phony tough-talk. Your braggart-in-chief just left town after screwing up more things than anyone thought it was possible to screw up. Time to sit back and let the smart people run things for awhile.
January 21st, 2009 at 10:04 am
Angryclown intended his girl to write “duct tape and plastic.”
She’s been sacked.
January 21st, 2009 at 10:05 am
Angryclown knows Obama won in 2008, Kerm. Though I can see why you’d want to live in the past.
January 21st, 2009 at 11:34 am
You’re the one babbling about stealing elections. I’m living in my future. Today is the first day of the rest of my life.
January 21st, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Angryclown intended his girl to write “duct tape and plastic.”
You’re allowed to have the girl to visit you in Bellevue?
January 21st, 2009 at 12:34 pm
“No Colleen, it really was the stupidness and incompetence.”
Right.
That’s why the super smart Democrat congress and the super smart Democrat President-elect took W’s idea to carpet bomb the country with IOU’s and ran with it…’cause he’s a moron.
“maybe you should recall that Angryclown and everybody else in New York went back to work every day after 9/11..”
You mean you didn’t even have to move your shine box? Sweet.
January 21st, 2009 at 1:41 pm
The stupidness and incompetence has just begun, AC. Not to mention Chicago political scandals leeching into the White House. Bush says it is a waste of resources to put too much emphasis on getting Bin laden? Stupidness and incompetence. Obama says it is a waste of resources to put too much emphasis on getting Bin laden? A wisdom and pragmatism.
You’re not a clown, you’re a joke.
January 21st, 2009 at 1:58 pm
One of ’em promised to get bin Laden “dead or alive.” Same guy said we were gonna “smoke ’em out.” That guy wasn’t President Obama, Blofeld, you volcano-living, cat-stroking, ultimatum-delivering, knock-off-Mau-suit wearing, plate-in-the-head jackass.
Your hero, GW Bush, has no role left, other than serving as the butt of jokes until the country somehow stumbles into a new worst-ever president to replace him. Meanwhile, Angryclown’s mirth is only increased by your bitter wingnut tears.
January 21st, 2009 at 1:59 pm
“Angryclown and everybody else in New York went back to work every day after 9/11”
Brave, brave angryclown. What were your other options?
January 21st, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Move to the suburbs, stock up on bottled water, cower in a duct-tape-and-plastic shelter in the basement, vote for authoritarian frauds who promised to make it all go away by magic. You know, like you did.
January 21st, 2009 at 2:12 pm
Angryclown and everybody else in New York went back to work every day after 9/11, when the rubble from the towers was still burning…
…and F16’s patrolled the skies over Gotham.
F16’s flown by the North Dakota Air National Guard.
January 21st, 2009 at 2:13 pm
When Bush said “smoke ‘em out”, was he referring to Osama Bin Laden personally? No, he was referring to a “them”. Al Qaeda perhaps? I guess it doesn’t support your “point”.
Anyway, your visceral and deranged hatred for all things GWB is duly noted.
January 21st, 2009 at 2:14 pm
angryclown said:
“You know, like you did”
As if angryclown know anything about what I did or did not do. Tell me more about what you don’t know, angryclown. *snicker*
January 21st, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Your hero, GW Bush, has no role left, other than serving as the butt of jokes until the country somehow stumbles into a new worst-ever president to replace him.
Which may be only a matter of months…
January 21st, 2009 at 3:49 pm
More likely not, though. It’s a very good position to be in, following the worst president in history – hard not to look good. Particularly when you can pronounce words and stuff.
Hoover, Grant and Buchanan laugh at Bush.
January 21st, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Obama? Shit, I thought you were talking about Reagan.
January 21st, 2009 at 4:06 pm
After 9/11 I rented & watched this movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078723/
Seemed appropriate.
January 21st, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Mitch erred: “…and F16’s patrolled the skies over Gotham.
F16’s flown by the North Dakota Air National Guard.”
Ooh, hate to show you up on NoDak AND military trivia in the same post. But you’re thinking of Massachusetts. Or Vermont. The NoDak fighters flew over Washington. An important city, to be sure. But much smaller than New York.
Challenge enough for the NoDak flyboys, no doubt, what with getting used to all those modern elly-vators and indoor toilets they encountered on the ground.
January 21st, 2009 at 6:11 pm
The DC/New York/LA political/media establishment has always hated W.
BS- in fact they treated him with kid gloves, but you go ahead and make points that can’t be disproved and as a result, can’t be proven either.
Troy – Bush said he wanted Bin Laden “Dead or Alive” and used “Smoke em’ out” as a furtherance of the ‘lil cowboy’ speechifyin’ lingo – he sure as hell meant OBL, in addition to his cohorts, but go with your revisionist crap, it’s about as accurate as saying the ENTIRE LA/NY/blaha blah hated Bush – and then making up crap about why they did.
They didn’t like the fact he was a corrupt, abusive, powermad dissembler, and they duly noted that he said one thing while doing another, if contempt for corrupt, unethical politicians now equates to hatred simply because they didn’t pander to his whims, and promote his propoganda – well, I guess that’s what passes for truth in righty-world.
January 21st, 2009 at 6:13 pm
BTW Mitch, what exactly do you consider the WSJ and the Washington Times? Are they NOT part of the DC/New York media?
Heaping.
Load.
of.
Crappola.
January 21st, 2009 at 6:21 pm
Hey Peev: pretty great watching history yesterday, knowing the far-right Mitchketeers were eating their hearts out, eh?
January 21st, 2009 at 7:02 pm
penigma said:
“he sure as hell meant OBL”
Whatever, sir. You obviously make up stuff and then believe it. Or did you get that info from your “neighbor”? *snicker*
January 21st, 2009 at 7:34 pm
A.C.-Show us your proof that the election was “stolen”. Simple question.
January 21st, 2009 at 8:35 pm
“They didn’t like the fact he was a corrupt, abusive, powermad dissembler, and they duly noted that he said one thing while doing another,”
What world you living in?
Corrupt? Explain. Justify the accusation.
Abusive? To whom?
Powermad? Tell that to the Obama transition team.
Said one thing while doing another? When? He confused them by saying one thing and then doing it.”
You truly are a idiot.
January 21st, 2009 at 11:53 pm
“Eating their hearts out”?
Other than a few appointments — not including Hillary — Obama has done nothing that McCain wouldn’t have done. Including a reading by the same lousy poet.
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:57 am
On the one hand you write:
BS- in fact they treated him with kid gloves
…and follow up with…:
but you go ahead and make points that can’t be disproved and as a result, can’t be proven either.
Um, yeah.
The part that really amazes me is that you no doubt think you not only make sense, but believe you are crafting persuasive, logical arguments,
It’s like you have aphasia; like you’re just tossing out random bits of argument with no real coherence.
January 22nd, 2009 at 5:19 am
Terry hallucinated: “Obama has done nothing that McCain wouldn’t have done.”
Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Also, bin Laden’s actually dead, right? Though now that a Democrat’s in the White House, I’m going to go and guess you wingnuts think he’s back to being alive again.