Month: August 2006

4 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Editorials, Republicans

who’s the boss?

the republicans have a problem, and it’s more serious than the prospect of losing power in november. as much as we would like to think we have an advantage because howard dean is leading the democratic party, we can’t ignore the leadership void in our own party. who’s in charge here? the president is supposed to be running things, and providing leadership. he is doing his level best to defend himself, and to explain his policies to us. i acknowledge that effort. unfortunately, people on both sides of the aisle are losing faith in president bush. what the republicans need is a strong voice who can effectively defend our political philosophy and to explain why we have the right ideas for the country. unfortunately, tony snow’s kind of busy right now with that whole press secretary thing.

who will step up and be the leader that we need? sure we have official republican party leaders, but there’s no spark there, and there’s no big picture vision beyond keeping themselves in power. that’s what made us different from the democrats in the beginning. what was cool about the reagan years? big ideas. optimism for the future of this country. strength in the face of a communist threat. oh yeah, and those infamous tax cuts. that’s what i believe is missing today from both political parties – that expression of optimism about the future. what we have is a bunch of chicken littles running around trying to convince us that the sky is falling.

we need someone who is inspiring and positive, someone who has a bold vision of how to lead this country. we need someone who understands the problems that we face, both foreign and domestic, and who will aggressively deal with those problems. do we have an ’08 candidate who fits that description? we will find out soon enough.

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7 Comments Posted on Democrats, Iraq, Republicans

it’s just that simple

mort kondracke nails the big question in the november elections. will it be decided by views on iraq or on the war on terrorism? i believe that the answer will determine which party will be left standing at the end.

Republicans think they gain by calling the Democrats “defeatists” on Iraq and by asserting that Democrats are “weak” on terror because they opposed the NSA wiretap program and had qualms about efforts to track terrorist finances through the international banking system.

Who’s actually gaining in this struggle is hard to tell. Traditionally, Republicans lead Democrats in public trust on fighting terrorism by margins of 25 to 30 points, but recent polls have shown that advantage dropping to single digits.

A Pew poll last week showed that more Americans, 69 percent, are concerned Republicans would get the United States involved in new wars than the 57 percent who are worried that Democrats are weak on fighting terror.

This week, however, a Gallup Poll reported Bush’s overall approval rating rose to 42 percent from 37 percent over the two weeks since the London plot was stifled and, for his handling of terrorism, to 55 percent from 47 percent.

But for handling Iraq, he remained mired at 36 percent. And a CBS/New York Times poll showed Americans, by 51 percent to 32 percent, don’t think Iraq represents a “major part” of the war on terror.

If the election hinges on “terror,” Republicans may win. If it’s “Iraq” and things keep looking grim there, it’s a Democratic advantage. That will frame the argument through November.

that’s the disconnect. americans don’t see iraq as a major part of the war on terror. the bad news for president bush is that he has been unable to sell this connection, since saddam didn’t directly order 9/11 and there’s no concrete evidence that he knew about bin laden’s plans. it is an unwinnable battle trying to explain to the american people why iraq was a legitimate target even if it didn’t have a direct link to 9/11. so i’m not going to make that attempt.

this disconnect actually benefits republicans, since bush’s ratings on the overall war on terror vastly exceed his numbers on the war in iraq. that’s why the way the debate is framed makes a huge difference. of course there are other valid criticisms of the party in power, and we all know what those are, but iraq and the war on terror will still be the primary debate going into this midterm.

the final outcome of the iraq war will determine how aggressive we will be as a country in prosecuting the war on terror, and how future and current bad actors will view the resolve of the united states in dealing with threats to its security. you can argue about whether it was part of the war on terror in the beginning, but it certainly is now. our success or failure in iraq will have major consequences for the rest of the region. can we leave iraq a better place than we found it? what will our enemies say about us when the united states military finally leaves iraq? will they be convinced that we are serious about fighting terrorism? those are questions that we will answer, and the world is watching us.

this should not be a partisan snipe-fest. republicans and democrats alike should be equally committed to giving our government the tools it needs to fight this war on terror effectively and to protect us here at home. we should support candidates who take this view, and reject those who don’t.

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1 Comment Posted on '08 Election, Conservatives, Democrats, Liberals

pot.kettle.black

guess who said this in a chris matthews interview(comments in bold):

I served with George Allen when he was governor. I don‘t think he belongs in public service, to be honest with you. There are Republicans who are capable and smart, thoughtful people, and he‘s not one of them. So you know, the people in Virginia are going to do what they want to do, but I…

Q. You make him sound like a knucklehead. Is that what you think?

I‘m not going to use those kinds of words.

Q. In other words, you‘re saying he doesn‘t belong in public service, because of why?

Because he‘s always shooting from the hip. He never thinks through what he means, and he caters to the wrong instincts in people. And I think using derogatory terms to people of color is certainly something that a public servant might not do.

this makes sense. our public servants should always think before speaking, cater to the best instincts in people, and always be careful not to use racial slurs. too bad howard dean doesn’t follow his own advice. yes, that’s howard dean, chairman of the DNC, lecturing senator allen on how he should behave. you know what they say about people who live in glass houses. if senator allen, who has apologized for what he said, isn’t fit for public service, then neither is howard dean.

until i heard these comments from howard dean, i was undecided about senator allen’s possible presidential run. if any success for allen annoys howard dean, i’m all in. 🙂 seriously, though, i am not going to make any unofficial or official endorsements this early in the game. the field is wide open for the republicans, and senator allen will have more than enough time to recover politically, and be a major player in ’08.

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2 Comments Posted on Democrats, Iraq

lieberman: rummy must go

from face the nation sunday night (8/20): (pdf)

BOB SCHIEFFER: Tell us what you would do right now that is different than what the president is proposing.

Sen. LIEBERMAN: Yeah. I think there’s–three years ago in October on this show you asked me and I said that I believe that it was time for new leadership at the Pentagon. I think it’s still time for new leadership at the Pentagon. With all respect to Don Rumsfeld, who has done a grueling job for six years, we would benefit from new leadership to work with our military in Iraq. We also have to put severe pressure on the Iraqis to contain the sectarian violence that is there and stand up their ministries of defense and interior security. And then we’ve got to get the other Arab countries and hopefully some of the Europeans in with us to help to reconstruct Iraq. There is still hope in Iraq, and so long as there is, we cannot just pick up and, and walk away and leave them to the sure disaster that would follow and that would compromise our security in the war against terrorism.

SCHIEFFER: All right. All right.

JIM VANDEHEI: In five or 10 years, that’s fine?

Sen. LIEBERMAN: I don’t believe it will take five or 10 years.

SCHIEFFER: OK. I’m sorry. We have to let it go there. Thank you very much.

there’s that gutsy lieberman all those crazy republicans adore. i bet they just love that he called for the head of donald rumsfeld. i’m guessing this is not something karl rove told him to say. this is no different from what some of his fellow democrats have been saying, but lieberman is a little late to this bandwagon, even though he may have said something similar to this in the past. he is fighting an uphill battle if he thinks that he can win back those lamont voters with this suggestion. he has already lost them, and there’s nothing he can say to convince them that he is against this war or against anything the bush administration is doing.

i agree with most of what lieberman is suggesting here, although I’m not as optimistic as he is that we can get the europeans to help us with the reconstruction. they seem to view iraq as our mess to clean up, and i don’t know what incentives would change their minds about that. so we are where we are. we do need to re-think our current strategy there, because what we are doing now is not working. if we leave iraq without finishing what we started there, the situation will get worse, not better. that’s the reality.

i hope lieberman is right when he says that he doesn’t think that it will take five or ten years to stabilize iraq. there have been some estimates (one from the atlantic monthly) that paint a more gloomy picture of our progress in iraq and what it will take to complete this mission. unless the american people see significant signs of improvement in iraq, they won’t support five or ten more years there. the american people are unconvinced that we are winning in iraq. unless that changes, it will be difficult to keep our troops there much longer.

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2 Comments Posted on Democracy, Illegal Immigration, Republicans

buchanan slams the neocons

The Bush democracy campaign brought stunning electoral gains for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hamas in Palestine, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Moqtada al-Sadr in Iraq. Our ally Hamid Kharzai is today little more than mayor of Kabul, as the Taliban roam the southeast and coalition casualties reach the highest levels since liberation, five years ago.

North Korea and Iran remain defiant on their nuclear programs. Vladimir Putin is befriending every regime at odds with Bush, from Tehran to Damascus to Caracas. Neocon meddling in The Bear’s backyard has gotten us bit.

Unless we grade foreign policy on the nobility of the intent, which is how the liberals used to defend disasters like Yalta, it is not credible to call Bush’s foreign policy a success. The Lebanon debacle, once U.S. complicity is exposed, is unlikely to win anyone a Nobel.

Bush’s trade policy has left us with annual deficits of $800 billion with the world and $200 billion with Beijing. Once the greatest creditor nation in history, we are now the greatest debtor. U.S. manufacturing has been hollowed out with thousands of plants closed and 3 million industrial jobs vanishing since Bush took office.

As for Bush immigration policy, the nation is in virtual rebellion. Six million aliens have been caught at the Mexican border since he took office. One in 12 had a criminal record. In April-May, millions of Hispanics marched through U.S. cities demanding amnesty and all rights of citizenship for aliens who are breaking the law by even being here. Bush and the Senate are in paralysis, appeasing the lawbreakers by offering amnesties and by opposing House demands that the president seal the border before the invasion brings an end to the America we once knew.

pat buchanan (real clear politics)

it is troubling what has happened in afghanistan with karzai, but that is a result of not completely finishing what we started there, and not as a result of having elections. democracy doesn’t always produce the desired results. it doesn’t automatically make citizens more free simply because they can now cast a vote for the leaders of their choice. there are cultural and societal changes that have to take place before democracy and freedom work in concert with each other. look at the united states for an example. where does our freedom come from? it certainly doesn’t come from the ability to vote, or from our government. freedom is individual. it’s personal. the same theory applies to other countries as well.

worry about iran first. then we can deal with north korea. i wish the president would wake up to the fact that putin is not our friend, and that we need to pay closer attention to what he’s doing.

i’m not going to address buchanan’s comments about trade policy, because i don’t know enough to dispute him on that point. he is dead-on about immigration, and i hope president bush gets the message that we are trying to send. however, i share buchanan’s pessimism about this.

pat buchanan knows where all the problems are. what he doesn’t seem to have is a solution to deal with all of these problems.

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17 Comments Posted on Editorials, Iraq

it’s up to us

in november, we will have an opportunity to vote on the direction of the iraq war. we have a chance to choose between two parties with what (i believe) are two totally different views on the prosecution of the iraq war and on the overall war on terror. while i think that it’s an unfair characterization to paint candidates such as ned lamont and democratic leaders like howard dean as closet sympathizers with al qaeda, it is important to point out that their proposals aren’t necessarily the best way to deal with iraq.

this is the point where our faith in the current course is tested. it’s a legitimate argument to point out that we are struggling in iraq right now. i’m tired of trying to defend the president on his iraq policy, because it seems to go against what we are all seeing on the evening news. i’m sure that many other republicans and especially those in congress have that same inner struggle, especially when their defense of the president may cost them their jobs.

there’s more at stake here than choosing to support the war in iraq or to oppose it. what we will be deciding in november is how aggressively we want to deal with the terrorist threat we face in this country. i can’t say this enough…karl rove didn’t invent this threat just to scare the country into voting for republicans. IT’S REAL. when we go to the polls this november, that’s the question we will have to answer. can the democrats prove that they will use any means available to them to catch the terrorists who want to kill us? whether you agree with everything bush has done, or whether you question the legality of some of those programs, there should be no doubt that he will do whatever he feels is necessary to protect us.

the future of iraq and the direction of the war on terror has now being placed into our hands. it’s up to us to decide what happens next. consider this decision carefully. choose wisely.

“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself” — John Stuart Mill

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15 Comments Posted on Democrats, Liberals, Republicans

unserious

the democrats can’t have this both ways. they can talk all they want to about having a strong and smart foreign policy and a better strategy for dealing with terrorism, but their actions don’t suggest that they are serious about implementing one. from opposing common-sense measures like tracking money transfers and bragging about “killing the Patriot Act” to supporting the candidacy of ned lamont, the democrats now controlling the message haven’t found the right one yet. i realize that on some level, the democratic leadership had to support their senate nominee in connecticut. it’s traditional and all that. there’s something else going on with their support of lamont. ned lamont says what the rest of the democrats are afraid to say. it’s a way for the democrats to look more anti-war than they are without making an actual commitment to do what those like ned lamont want to do. this won’t work with the left wing and it doesn’t really work with me.

that’s because the left wing of the democratic party doesn’t believe the war on terror actually exists. they want to harp about the “politics of fear” and so forth. that’s a problem for the democrats if they want to take the battle to the republicans on national security. terrorism is real. it existed before bush. it will exist after bush is gone. you can hate bush all you want to and oppose his iraq policy all you want to, but at some point someone will ask the democrats how they could improve on the current fight against terrorism while taking away some of the very tools used by the brits to stop the recent terror plot in their country. i doubt their answer would reassure voters that they can improve on the record of the bush administration. i am also amazed that many polls rate democrats ahead of republicans on national security when it’s not even clear that the dems have a credible alternative plan on iraq. iraq is a struggle right now, i will admit that, but the democrats can’t figure out how to fix it either.

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18 Comments Posted on Democrats, Liberals

it’s on

congratulations to the nutroots and to their chosen one, howard dean…i mean ned lamont. it’s not the blowout they wanted, but it was a lamont victory. now many in the democratic leadership are lining up behind connecticut’s new flavor of the month. they are using ned just like their left-wing supporters did. if anyone thinks that a lamont victory in november would change the way the democrats vote on iraq withdrawal, think again. unless they get the majority back in congress, it’s not gonna happen. look at how the democrats react to similar proposals by kerry, kucinich, and russ feingold. the democrats can talk all they want to about withdrawing troops from iraq, but until they actually vote to do it, that’s all it is.

it was interesting to watch lieberman’s reaction to his loss – like it was merely a temporary setback to his victory in november. that’s far from a sure thing. if the majority of the democratic leadership support lamont, then it will be rather lonely out there on the campaign trail. when you have rahm emmanuel not only supporting lamont, but calling lieberman bush’s “love child”…that’s not a good sign. there’s also no guarantee that the independents and moderate republicans will support lieberman in a three-way race, regardless of what the polling may indicate. i’m not sure how lieberman keeps the support he already has AND gains votes after losing the primary.

on the other hand, lamont didn’t give a normal victory speech. he sounded like howard dean when dean was giving the “scream” speech. there was nothing conventional about what lamont said. he tossed out plenty of red meat to the fierce partisans in the crowd, and that was about 90% of the speech. there was nothing gracious about what he said. there was no sign of a positive agenda. if lieberman could be called a sore loser, then it’s equally true that lamont was a poor winner. is this kind of message the one that the democrats want to promote as their “new direction for america”?

all i have to say is: be careful what you wish for.

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8 Comments Posted on Democrats, Liberals

that’s one way to protest

when connecticut voters go to the polls on tuesday and choose between ned lamont and joe lieberman, it’s hard to predict what will happen next. it’s very possible that lieberman will lose to lamont, but even though this may happen, i don’t think that this will determine the national mood of the country. there are several reasons why i believe this. the first reason is that lieberman’s campaign staff is almost as incompetent as john kerry’s was during his race for the presidency (and that’s really saying something). it’s safe to say they have made a couple serious mistakes, the most glaring of which was the debate advice they gave him. attack your opponent if you see a weakness. seize the opportunity to emphasize your experience and qualifications. all that makes sense, but it’s not necessary to be condescending, rude, or arrogant as you sell yourself to the viewers and the audience. if the viewers saw it the way i did, i can’t imagine that lieberman gained anything by acting like that. it only plays into that out-of-touch washington insider stereotype that his detractors are trying to suggest.

the second reason is that lieberman has been unable to sell the rest of his liberal resume and his commitment to most causes beloved by those at daily kos and huffington post. even daily kos’ second favorite democrat, bill clinton, can’t seem to convince the locals that joe lieberman is the right man to represent their interests in washington, dc. lieberman has a serious image problem and there’s no easy way to fix that.

then again, it’s not about joe lieberman. it’s not even about what a great guy lamont is. the netroots are using ned lamont. it’s a way to cast a protest vote against someone they can’t get rid of just yet…george w. bush. it’s more than iraq. these people want to send the message that agreeing with george w. bush on anything, no matter how small the issue may be, is unacceptable, and that such behavior should be punished. i don’t believe that lieberman opponents would have any serious objection to most of his voting record, but the debate over the war in iraq has become so vicious that there’s bound to be a few political casualties along the way.

the voters have a right to make up their own minds whether lieberman or lamont could best represent them. both of them are too liberal for me, but not too much for connecticut. what a lamont victory would lead to is not some kind of political tidal wave where all the iraq war supporters are drummed out of congress, but a deep ideological struggle between the netroots crowd and the DLC for control of the party’s message. that could be dangerous for them. i can understand why the centrist dems are nervous about this race, because while a lamont win may not have any national implications, it still could cause some ideological chaos within the ranks. if that chaos splits up the democratic party, it will hurt them in november.

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