The hard sell on the Long War continues as the President draws on old ghosts, old saws, and old wounds in order to make the case for staying in Iraq for perpetuity. Aware of his own damaged credibility as a spokesman for Iraq, Bush is compensating in several ways. But are the Democrats complicit (knowingly or unknowingly) in working the hard sell this week? Evidence seems to point to yes.
The Long War is getting a PR boost from outside the beltway…sort of. Former Bush flack Ari Fleischer is at it again:
Freedom’s Watch, a conservative group, plans to launch a $15 million advertising campaign in 20 states today. The group’s spokesman, former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer, says the goal is to tell people that the buildup of U.S. troops in Iraq is working.
“We want to get the message to both Democrats and Republicans: Don’t cut and run, fully fund the troops, and victory is the only objective,” Fleischer says.
Note the real problem here: Heretic Republicans will not be tolerated. Those who have apostate views on Iraq are going to be targeted by their own people now, using Swiftboat/astroturf methods. Part of the hard sell on the Long War is to round up those in the President’s party and “convince” them that on Iraq, Bush’s position is the only position. As Ari Fleischer remarked, “Victory is the only objective”. All else must be subsumed by the effort for victory, nothing else is acceptable. That especially includes criticism from inside the GOP. Bush Uber Alles.
Meanwhile the President is trying to scare up old memories of the last time we were in this bind.
The president will also make the argument that withdrawing from Vietnam emboldened today’s terrorists by compromising U.S. credibility, citing a quote from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden that the American people would rise against the Iraq war the same way they rose against the war in Vietnam, according to the excerpts.
You can’t get too much deeper down the Orwellian rabbit hole than this argument. Again, the President is saying that the real enemy here is criticism of his Iraq policy. Dissent cannot be tolerated, because it weakens us and emboldens the enemy. Only the President’s view on Iraq, that we must fight until “victory” is achieved, is tolerable.
The problem with that of course is the fact that the President is openly questioning the patriotism of anyone who disagrees with him, suggesting that the Enemy is using them to weaken the United States. The reality is that the President’s disgraceful actions and idiotic foreign policy has done that for us, but of course logic has never slowed down Dubya even for a second.
The problem is that the Democrats have been allowing Bush to run foreign policy now with virtually no resistance. Why? Especially when the largest problem with the Democrats is that they don’t resist the Republicans enough, and that the Democrats are furious because of it. I ask that because there’s a very real problem with the fact that the Democrats are allowing the Petraeus White House Report to be given on September 11th.
There’s something wrong there. If there’s any solstice date for the politicization of the Long War effort, it’s 9/11. The date has the most brutal history of being used as a weapon against Bush’s critics and political opposition. To allow Bush to give the Petraeus White House Report on 9/11 is almost a freebie for the Bush Administration, representing a least-resistance type move that to many Democrats seems like just more of the same refusal to resist Bush on Iraq.
If it’s somehow a “clever move to highlight the failure of the surge on 9/11” it’s too clever by half, for the “serious foreign policy” crowd would be able to reject any and all criticism of the General’s White House’s report by saying that the Democrats are playing politics with 9/11…and to an extent they would be right.
There’s no upside for the Democrats to schedule this report on 9/11. None. Even criticism that Bush is using 9/11 as a political tool rings hollow on 9/11, even if it is most certainly true. And yet the evidence is beginning to pile up that the Democrats are not only refusing to resist Bush on Iraq, but that they are actively supporting him and the efforts to expand the Long War into Iran, Syria, Pakistan, and the Middle East.
At this point the Democrats are offering no more than token resistance to Bush, and the reason seems to be that they A) expect progressives to vote for them over the GOP regardless of performance and B) expect the Long War to continue well past Bush’s term. Both of these assumptions are extraordinarily disturbing to the country and to anybody who does disagree with the President on the war.
So why are the hawkish Democrats, particularly the ones running for President, setting us up for the Long War? Hillary’s done no more than to prod the Bush administration on the trial balloon involving the draft. All the Dems should be laying into the Bush position that the draft is back on the table as an admission that the Surge has failed, and yet we’re hearing nothing. There seem to be no easy answers on this, and in the meantime the clock is ticking on Iran.
Even worse, the Democrats are failing to stand up to the notion that dissent is a criminal act. The Bush administration is implying at almost every turn now that getting out of Iraq is a treasonous position, that only enemies of America would want us to leave Iraq. The assumption that supporting us leaving Iraq is somehow an equal act to plotting against America is ludicrous, and yet it is done on a daily basis. Shame, guilt, fear, and twisted logic…the hard sell rolls on.
It continues with the tacit or implied permission of the Democratic leaders in Congress as well as most of the ones in the 2008 Presidential race. It continues with the implications that anyone contrary to the Long War is the enemy. It continues virtually unabated in the press, in the beltway, and in the right blogosphere.
And that’s just this week.
