It is probably little-remembered that Bob Dole ran as Gerald Ford’s running mate in 1976 and that he had a debate with vice-presidential candidate Walter Mondale. During that debate, Bob Dole created some controversy when he said that World War One and Two, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War were all “Democratic wars.” By that he meant that our involvement in all those wars began under Democratic presidents. It was a true statement, but the way he said it made it sound like these were all wars of choice irresponsibly launched by Democrats. I’d argue strenuously against the irresponsibility of fighting in World War Two, but the other three are certainly open for debate. My point here is that it wasn’t that long ago that the Democrats had the reputation for having a “muscular foreign policy.” To be sure, that reputation had begun to erode in a major way in the decade before 1976. That’s part of what made Dole’s comments seem so bizarre. But we fought and won the World Wars under Democratic presidents and we started the Korean and Vietnam Wars under Democratic presidents, only to see both of them sloppily resolved by Republicans.
While the GOP talked a lot of anti-communist smack, they hadn’t actually put any of our boys in harm’s way between 1941 and 1976. Sure, Nixon extended the Vietnam War, but he also ended it. The Republicans didn’t become the actual war party until Carter had some bad luck in his attempt the rescue the Iranian hostages and Reagan became president.
I mention this because I take a position midway between Josh Marshall and digby. I think Josh’s view of machismo in politics is oversimplified and somewhat insulting to the voters’ intelligence. I think digby is wringing her hands a bit too much.
Marshall sees the attack on Romney for not having the guts or wisdom to go get bin-Laden as a way of emasculating him. He’s thinks this is a legitimate strategy and he thinks it’s effective because swing voters respond to these manly/unmanly cues. Digby doesn’t necessarily dispute Josh’s analysis; she just bemoans it.
I’m not quite as ecstatic that we have an awesome manly man who can out macho the opposition with tough orders to kill our evil enemies. I tend to think it reinforces some unfortunate characteristics of our politics, which Marshall defines above. Not to mention that I don’t know anyone who really believes that Democrats can possibly be masculine enough to win this in the long term. The Party of gays, women and kids is never going to out-macho the Republicans. (They might be able to do it if they commit to totally abandoning those constituencies, so I suppose there’s still hope …) I have no doubt that Barack Obama will be remembered as a very manly president because of his national security policies. But if you’re on Team Blue, enjoy it. It’s a one-time thing. I doubt very seriously that will mean a thing to any other Democrat running for office now or in the future.
Why is digby wrong? Well, for starters, she just defined the Democratic Party as the party of gays, women, and kids. That’s pretty self-limiting, don’t you think? Was FDR’s Democratic Party limited to gays, women, and kids? Was JFK’s or LBJ’s Democratic Party limited in that way? I’m not attacking her here, but I think she left out the part about the blacks and the Latinos and Asians and the Native Americans. But she also just ceded the white male adult vote, and I see no reason to do that.
The main point is that liberals can govern this country with toughness and brains, and we should expect to lay our enemies low when we go about things in an intelligent manner. There’s nothing to apologize for. The Republicans started a war with a country that didn’t attack us and ran that war terribly. There is no reason in the world why we shouldn’t take full credit for focusing on our true enemies and defeating them. Contra Marshall, this is no mere schoolyard taunting. This is an actual record of success.
I think they’re both wrong.
