Peggy Noonan continues to come unglued in public. You can read the whole thing if you like carwrecks, but the most interesting part is where she states the position of the Washington Republican elite.
What a dreadful mistake the president made when he stiff-armed the Iraq Study Group report, which had bipartisan membership, an air of mutual party investment, the imprimatur of what remains of or is understood as the American establishment, and was inherently moderate in its proposals: move diplomatically, adjust the way we pursue the mission, realize abrupt withdrawal would yield chaos. There were enough good ideas, anodyne suggestions and blurry recommendations (blurriness is not always bad in foreign affairs–confusion can buy time!) that I thought the administration would see it as a life raft. Instead they pushed it away.
Before long Noonan will be wondering aloud whether Bush and Cheney belong in the Hague. But she is not there yet. For now she is only contemplating something she dare not make explicit: the collapse of the administration and their replacement by [egad] Democrats.
But there are two vacuums in the Iraq story. The first is the vacuum that would be filled in Iraq if America withdrew tomorrow. The second is the power vacuum that will be created in Washington if the administration is, indeed, collapsing. The Democrats of Capitol Hill will fill that one. And they seem–and seemed in their statements after the president’s speech–wholly unprepared to fill it, wholly unserious in their thoughts and approach. They seem locked into habits that no longer pertain, and absorbed by the small picture of partisan advancement at the expense of the big picture, which is that the nation is in trouble and needs their help. They are sunk in the superficial.
I know what Noonan is saying. I don’t agree with her. But too many Democrats have not realized that Elite Washington Republicans consider the Bush/Cheney administration as beyond help. Just push a little and the edifice will topple. The votes will be there.
If your worldview is that you are a member/supporter of one party come hell or high water – loyal until it is a fault – then you are denying the possibility that somebody else might do better. She’s so locked into the idea that “liberals” are not sensible/responsible that she can’t see the forest for the trees. I’d say the election showed most people are not so afflicted.
So, President Pelosi?
But seriously, if it goes that far, I think the republicans broker a deal where Bush goes first and Cheney is elevated but only if he agrees to appoint a VP acceptable to the “remains of the republican establishment”.
So perhaps we see someone like Colin Powell or Tom Kean. Maybe even a Chuck Hagel or Lindesy Graham if the Republicans want to position themselves for 2008.
Then maybe Cheney resigns for health reasons or is impeached over the Plame affair.
Much as I’d love to see the dominoes fall and a President Pelosi take over, I think too many people would view it as a democratic power play or coup.
I’d support a brokered deal like that even if it resulted in moderate – conservative Republican President in 2008 along with a democratic congress.
Everyone outside of the cabal at 1600 Pennsy Ave and the AEI knows this whole thing is broken beyond repair. I think its only a matter of time.
not just yet; Unless Cheney is defanged.
Cheney may face a difficult year as noted in The Financial Times, UK
But see his roadmap.
Beleaguered but not out. His loyalists remain ( – Laura Rozen) In Cheney’s kingdom who will watch Gates’ back?
It’s seen as
Who’ll take him on?
How about a blizzard of subpoenas to every oil exec he’s ever talked to, on or off the record? Especially off the record? How long before somebody tells something out of school?
The Beltway folks must have been horrified at Bush’s response to the Iraq Study Group. They had been touting it, Time Magazine flat-out said on its cover that Bush would take its recommendations seriously, and they were all prepared to come together and work things out.
But to dismiss it out of hand? (I think I read that Bush called the report a “flaming turd.”)
I mean, it was James Baker! Alan Simpson! Sandra Day O’Connor! Superstars all, and they were ignored like second-tier staffers.
Bush’s speech scared everyone to death, and Peggy is just now realizing what we all knew a long time ago. Bush will never stop, never, as long as he has the military. He’ll do whatever he has to do to win, and I think naval and air battles are in our near future.
They seem locked into habits that no longer pertain, and absorbed by the small picture of partisan advancement at the expense of the big picture, which is that the nation is in trouble and needs their help. They are sunk in the superficial.
I think that’s a fair description, actually, though Noonan’s reasons probably differ somewhat from mine: so far the main calculation Democrats seem to be making is what they can get away with politically. Most probably realize that the best course of action for the country is a phased but relatively rapid withdrawal followed by mostly diplomatic efforts to contain the Iraq mess, but most are also more concerned about re-election (or presidential bids) to do what’s best for the country. There are exceptions like Feingold, but the rest of them seem to be craven cowards. It’s okay for American soldiers to keep dying as long as the Dems don’t catch the blame for losing the war. Weirdly, Republicans opposed to Bush’s policies, like Hagel, seem to have more cojones, or at least more freedom of movement.
The political disease that the DLC and its megacorporate GOP backers disseminated like smallpox-laced blankets to the Democratic party is now pandemic. Everything revolves around perceived electability. Everyone knows, but no one will come out and say, that the president is at best incompetent and quite likely seriously mentally ill and needs to be removed from office so that we can extract ourselves from Iraq.
Instead, we are left with the spectacle of nonbinding resolutions and a Democratic congress that prefers to let the “surge” fail over the next three months because it will be more politically expedient to do so than to pull the plug now. The party is, with few exceptions, behaving every bit as disgracefully as the Republicans.
Actually Noonan’s comments make sense. We’ve know this for years. But now sane Republicans realize that President Bush is a radical ideologue. Reading her sent Goosebumps down my back. George W will continue escalating the war. Iran is next with all its associated horrors; Israel and the USA in a Holy War against all of Islam. Nuclear weapons will be detonated.
She’s absolutely right. She’s describing the Bush Administration to a T. She just got that one sentence about the Democrats in the middle there by accident. I make cut and paste mistakes like that all the time.