Not In The Mood For Sanity

 

The inimitable Mark Steyn made an interesting point in an interview with Hugh Hewitt yesterday (audio here): The Democratic Party isn't in the mood for sanity; it is a party which is unable to articulate sane policies because of 'insane' pressure groups such as the Kossacks.

MS: Even when it's a Democrat who is articulating a responsible attitude to national security and foreign policy, they can't stand that, either, and they're railroading Joe Lieberman out of the party.

Now why is that? The answer is not about actual policies per se, but much more about taboos. The Democratic party has painted itself in a corner with its opposition strategy best described as 'personalization'. Campaigns like "Bush lied, People died" are coming back full circle to bite them; they are now forced to face a base which as a consequence have become more concerned with personalities or feelings rather than with policies which are in the best interest of the nation.

MS: Like Joe Lieberman, they run some kook up against you in the primary, and you get railroaded out of that party. I mean, one of the things we hear about this sort of Daily Kos type crowd is that they're just motivated by Bush hatred. [...]

HH: You know, Peter Beinart is my guest in the last hour. He's trying valiantly to recapture the Democratic Party from the fever swamp. [...] They're afraid of Kos. They're afraid of him in the media, and they're afraid of him in the Democratic Party.

MS: Yes, and I think that's the big difference, that in fact when you look at the number of people starting with the Democrats' own leader in the Senate, who went to pay court with the Daily Kos crowd in the last week, that's very different. [...] There is a double standard there, and unfortunately, Peter Beinart, I think is really in the same situation as Lieberman is. He's trying to articulate a sane policy for a party that is not in the mood for one. And there are no takers for it.

There is no question, that "Bush lied, People died" was an immensely effective sound bite, but I hazard a guess, that in time, we'll be able to trace a failure to wrestle leadership away from the Republicans in November back to what will then appear as a battle won, but a war lost. For Goodness sake they even lost the Bush-spied-privacy-died hysterics. When their champion defender Glenn Greenwald gets disillusioned, as the country gets "dragged to a still new level of lawlessness", you know they are onto a loosing wicket.

"Left-wing nostalgia dies hard, but can it survive the events of this week?"

In the interview with Peter Beinart, Hugh quotes a passage from his book, "The Good Fight: Why Liberals And Only Liberals Can Win The War On Error And Make America Great Again", which sums up the reason why sane politicians with sane foreign policies to safeguard our national security have no longer a home in the Democratic party.

As liberals have grown cynical about the struggle against jihad, growing numbers have accepted the implicit message of the anti-imperialist left. The United States can best protect itself by retreating from the world.

Anti-imperialist lefties such as Michael Moore, George Lakoff, moveon.org and the Kossacks increasingly manage to dictate the tone of any agenda during Democratic primaries. But they do not represent the much larger traditional Democratic base; conservative Liberals committed to Democratic values of old will feel more and more alienated.

Case in point: Beinart rejects the Kossacks' witch hunt against Joe Lieberman and to replace him with Ned Lamont. What he says must echo the sentiment of millions of Liberals.

I disagree with that very strongly, and I believe that Joe Lieberman is kind of getting a bum rap. Even if you believe, as I do, that he and I were wrong on the war in Iraq, I'm sure we'll get to that. But I actually think the hostility to Lieberman is less about ideology, because these guys acknowledge that Lieberman's basically a...down the line, his voting is pretty liberal. He's hawkish on foreign policy, but is he that much more hawkish than Schumer or Hillary Clinton? I think the hostility to him is really about style. It's about the desire amongst the kind of liberal blogosphere to have people who will be, who will really, really snarl at George W. Bush, and it's really about the politics of style, and the fact that this one quote of Lieberman, which I think was a mistake that he shouldn't have said, where he basically said you know, we shouldn't criticize George W. Bush in time of war, or whatever.

Now what, ahem, really surprised me was the notion, that Karl Rove and President George W. Bush "consciously" engineered this current divide over the 'War on Terror'; that they made it into a partisan issue; that "some liberals are unwittingly playing into their hands, because now we start to see polling which does suggest that there is a pretty significant partisan divide in the priority that people give to the anti-jihadist struggle, and even to some degree on the war in Afghanistan".

In short, Beinart claims, that Rove and Bush are responsible for people to "believe that jihadism is primarily the result of American actions, and who basically believe that the only real struggle that liberals face today is the struggle against the right, incarnated by George W. Bush, and conservatives more generally".

Ahem. Nothing to do with MSM spin?! Well no it seems even the otherwise sane are in the mood for insanity. (h/t Allah)

But there is some truth to that. The Administration and the President himself have far too long failed to explain Jihad and its fundamental roots in everyday Islam to the American people. They have failed to explain the centuries long violent history behind Jihad and made the catastrophic mistake to pacify the public by reinforcing the fatal deceptions of Islam being the Religion of Peace.   

Comments

[brian]

You can refight the 2004 election all you want with this silly draft dodger stuff. You neglected to mention that Kerry met with the Communists in Paris, while still a Naval Officer and without consent from his own government, while his countrymen were still in combat with the same enemy. Then he flew down to Nicaragua to meet another Communist while his nation was at odds with him.

Again and again, Kerry consorts with his country's enemies against the policy of his own government. There is no way he's a hero. Wait, he's a hero to the NVA, they have his picture up in their war museum in what is now known as Ho Chi Minh City. Indefensible.

All of his votes against these weapon systems were in the midst of the conflict with the Soviets, not the post Cold War "peace dividend" period. He's not a principled leader, he's a shallow opportunist. End of story. He thinks he's entitled to be President, just because he's him.

To the broader point, the modern Democrat party saw no problem with any of those issues, and nominated him for Commander in Chief just because they thought the whole "Operation Fortunate Son" media blitz would distract Americans from his dismal record in the Senate, and his appalling lack of concern for his comrades in arms before that. He's unworthy of the praise you give him. All they wanted was to beat the evil Republican, they had no vision for America that was credible. Nothing semms to have changed at all. He's gonna run again, and he's flip flopped yet again on the war.

Also, Clinton proved that Democrats don't really mind a dope smoking womanizing draft dodger commanding our Armed Forces, hollowing out your silly and spiteful draft dodger line. It's just Bush Derangement Syndrome in full effect.

Republicans aren't perfect, to be sure, nut at least they want to win. The Democrats don't want to win, because Bush might get some credit. They want America to lose so they can retake the White House and Congress and then fix everything. Screw them, never gonna happen with that kind of attitude.

[Ghost Dansing]

"After completing 20 planes for which we have begun procurement, we will shut down further production of the B-2 bomber. We will cancel the small ICBM program. We will cease production of new warheads for our sea-based ballistic missiles. We will stop all new production of the Peacekeeper [MX] missile. And we will not purchase any more advanced cruise missiles. … The reductions I have approved will save us an additional $50 billion over the next five years. By 1997 we will have cut defense by 30 percent since I took office."

The speaker was President George H.W. Bush, the current president's father, in his State of the Union address on Jan. 28, 1992.

"Overall, since I've been Secretary, we will have taken the five-year defense program down by well over $300 billion. That's the peace dividend. … And now we're adding to that another $50 billion … of so-called peace dividend."

"Congress has let me cancel a few programs. But you've squabbled and sometimes bickered and horse-traded and ended up forcing me to spend money on weapons that don't fill a vital need in these times of tight budgets and new requirements. … You've directed me to buy more M-1s, F-14s, and F-16s—all great systems … but we have enough of them."

That was Gen. Colin Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at the same hearings, testifying about plans to cut Army divisions by one-third, Navy aircraft carriers by one-fifth, and active armed forces by half a million men and women, to say noting of "major reductions" in fighter wings and strategic bombers.

Reductions were made in the wake of the Soviet Union's dissolution and the Cold War's demise. But that is the greater point: Cuts must be examined in context. A vote against a particular weapons system doesn't necessarily indicate indifference toward national defense.

Looking at the weapons that Republican Party said Kerry voted to cut, a good case could be made, certainly at the time, that some of them (the B-2 bomber and President Reagan's "Star Wars" missile-defense program) should have been cut. As for the others (the M-1 tank and the F-14, F-15, and F-16 fighter planes, among others), Kerry didn't really vote to cut them.

By the way, if "Star Wars" scared Gorby, it's only because he didn't know anything about physics or the simplicity of employing countermeasures.

The "voting record" cited by the Republicans referred to Kerry's vote on Senate bill S. 3189 (CQ Vote No. 273) on Oct. 15, 1990. If one researches that one will find that S. 3189 was the Fiscal Year 1991 Defense Appropriations Act, and CQ Vote No. 273 was a vote on the entire bill. There was no vote on those weapons systems specifically.

On a couple of the weapons, the original RNC report cited H.R. 5803 and H.R. 2126. Look those up. They turn out to be votes on the House-Senate conference committee reports for the defense appropriations bills in October 1990 (the same year as S. 3189) and September 1995.

In other words, Kerry was one of 16 senators (including five Republicans) to vote against a defense appropriations bill 14 previous. He was also one of an unspecified number of senators to vote against a conference report on a defense bill nine years previous.

The Republicans took these facts and extrapolates from them that he voted against a dozen weapons systems that were in those bills.

The Republicans could have claimed, with equal logic, that Kerry voted to abolish the entire U.S. armed forces, but that might have raised suspicions.

In 1991, Kerry opposed an amendment to impose an arbitrary 2 percent cut in the military budget. In 1992, he opposed an amendment to cut Pentagon intelligence programs by $1 billion. In 1994, he voted against a motion to cut $30.5 billion from the defense budget over the next five years and to redistribute the money to programs for education and the disabled. That same year, he opposed an amendment to postpone construction of a new aircraft carrier. In 1996, he opposed a motion to cut six F-18 jet fighters from the budget. In 1999, he voted against a motion to terminate the Trident II missile.

Interestingly, the F-18 and Trident II are among the weapons systems that the Republicans claimed Kerry opposed.

That was all GOP propaganda...propaganda being, of course, the only area of expertise they honor.

Oh, by the way...John Kerry actually suited-up and showed-up for the war of his generation...unlike a certain priviledged draft dodger now in the oval office.

[brian]

That's one of the silliest rants I've read in a quite a while, Ghost Dansing. "Star Wars" was, if nothing else, a terrific way to pressure the Soviets in the disarmament talks in Iceland.

Gorby realized that a viable missle defense system for America completely destroyed the USSR's ability to threaten the United States with nuclear annihalation. Whether it would have worked perfectly or not, the point is that the Soviets BELIEVED WE COULD DO IT. It scared the bearcrap out of them, and they tried to corner Reagan into giving up SDI at the summit, and since Reagan was negotiating from a position of STRENGTH, he walked out on good old Gorby.

Furthermore, your "King" comment at the end shows your shallow partisanship, and undermines your already limited credibility, given the inaccurate interpretation of SDI and the Reagan diplomatic triumphs that led to the collapse of the most oppressive empire in recent times.

Face it, Ghost, Democrats are as a party weak on national defense. Look up John F. Kerry's voting record in the Senate. That's no GOP propaganda, Kerry cast those votes himself. While Reagan successfully strengthened the U.S. position in the Cold war, Kerry was trying to castrate all of the Armed Services and the Intelligence communnity. It's all in the record, I've seen it myself.

That's part of the reason he lost the election in 2004, fair & square. If it were up to him, the United States would have no B-2 Spirit, B1b Lancer, Arliegh Burke class Destroyer fleet, F-18 Hornet, Bradley APC, Abrams tank, just to name a few of the critical wepons systems that my military depends on today to win battlefield confrontations all over the world.

More recently he's been opposing upgrading the Air Force with the very impressive F-22 Raptor, hands down the best combat aircraft in the world. He thinks 35 year old technology is just fine for our pilots in harm's way. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program is also something he's against.

The "military-industrial complex" you're so frightened of is in fact one of the best features of this nation. Jobs for hundreds of thousands, keeping the U.S. Military ahead of the curve in capabilities since WWII. Deterrance doesn't work if you don't have better fighting machines than ANY POTENTIAL adversary. I, for one, want the absolute best to be MADE IN USA. Ask Mr. Zarqawi what he thinks of the Defense industry in America. Oh, wait a minute, he's dead. Nevermind.

[Ghost Dansing]

There are a number of mythologies inherent in the recent posts. First is that the Democratic Party seems to disregard national defense. This has never been true in recent times, or historically.

The notion that Democrats are weak on defense is a carefully recited mantra practiced by the Republican Party for a number of years...decades...starting sometime after the Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower who warned America about the potential excesses of the military industrial complex that emerged during and after WW II.

Ironically, the Republican Party, being essentially corporatist (and not even nationalistic coporatists because they'll "sell" to anybody) became the lap dog of the military industrial complex.

Thus, we've seen for decades frivolous defense spending on technologies, driven by corporate interest, that have little likelihood of success within their intended purpose, and often address threats that are more mythology than fact...the "Star Wars" initiative that took on a life of its own since the Reagan adminstration is a prime example.

Meanwhile, conventional forces are left deficient in both personnel and equipment for the types of wars we actually fight...

Sam Nunn, Murtha, Madelain Albright (actually said when she was Secretary of State: "What is the point of having a military if we never use it?") are all examples of recent hawkishness within the Democratic Party...the Clintonites were not adverse to the use of force...increased military budgets for five years after a significant decline in defense spending seeking "the peace dividend" post Cold War...and were often resisted by Republicans when the military was actually used or recommended during the Clinton years.

When Clinton was increasing the pressure on Iraq militarily and diplomatically, Cheney, at Haliburton, was lobbying to lift sanctions. Bush campaigned in 2000 indicating that he would greatly restrict the use of the U.S. Military in operations like the Balkans, where the Clinton administration had pushed for intervention against Serbian ethnic cleansing operations. Ironically, Dubya's war in Iraq has, after all other justifications failed, become a Wilsonian crusade for Democracy...very ironic indeed.

Right or wrong...Afghanistan, Vietnam, the Balkans and even Iraq...Democrats have been hawkish, and have been pro-Defense Department through the Cold War and beyond. They have, since Vietnam, exercised much more circumspection and caution...actually learning the lessons of the past rather than re-learning them by making the same old mistakes over and over.

The second mythology is that the Democratic Party is a political party comparable to the Republican Party...

It is not...it is neither a political hegemon nor a monolith...nor does it make attempts at appearance to be so. It is a political party founded in Liberalism in accordance with the foundational documents of the United States. Both Jefferson and Hamilton were Liberals, like it or not. Liberalism advocates certain processes, tolerance, imperfect achievement of certain ends...not absolutisms found in adherence to strict ideologies.

What is common between Communism, Fascism and modern Republicanism? A distaste for Liberals and Liberalism. Why do Republicans want an increasingly strong and overbearing Executive Branch? Because they fundamentally disagree with the checks and balances provided by the Liberal framework...the Legislative and Judicial Branches are to be neutered...and a King installed by simple majority rule.

Go figure.

[Reneybeany]

The problem with the Democratic party is that it is filled with fanatics. Eric Hoffer's book, The True Believer describes the Dems to a "T". Their recent huge mistake was allowing Howard Dean to become Chairman of the DNC. He is not a man of action -- try to name one civic accomplishment -- but rather a frustrated intellectual. The danger in people like Dean is that they draw others like them into the party. These people have no plan only an agenda. God help the nation that has people like many of the Dems in positions of real power.

[Tony Harrison]

Alexandra von Maltzan discusses the questionable "sanity" of many in the Democratic party, for their seeming disregard of our national defense.

I would quibble with the reasoning offered by Mark Steyn ("they are motivated by Bush hatred"), Peter Beinart ("liberals have grown cynical"), and Alexandra ("taboo" politics). Keeping with the principle of parsimony, I would offer a simpler explanation: ambition.

Sound bites ("Bush lied, People died") are more than rhetorical flourishes. As David Hume taught us, reason gives rise to no action. War requires action; therefore, passions must be aroused. And not all wars are fought on battlefields.

When Hannah Arendt began her discussion of action, she quoted Dante: For in every action ... is the disclosure of its own image. The image I see is: Democrats are ravenous, and their prey is within their grasp. Arendt told us, "men are unable to forgive what they cannot punish." This unrealized desire fuels great ambition.

Machiavelli began his Discourses with a truism, for he said, "envy [is] inherent in man's nature." He told us a story about a host of Gauls moved into Greece and Asia. The Gauls sought peace with the king of Macedonia. The king displayed his gold to convince them of his power. The Gauls desired gold more than they wanted peace, so they bespoiled the king of his treasure.

Ambition and envy engenders great action, while reasoning folks sit and dither. Hume told us, reasoning left unchecked destroys reason. Machiavelli told us, "necessity will lead you to do many things which reason does not recommend." Often, those without political power are the most ambitious. To assuage this great desire, some will take ruinous actions.

Arendt told us, "power springs up between men when they act together and vanishes the moment they disperse." Thus, it should surprise no one to witness Senator Lieberman being tossed from the Tarpein Rock, for he was diminishing their power.

Titus Livy told us about the Plebs' desire for Agarian reform, for the people wanted land. Even while the Volscians and the Aequians were marching on Rome, "it was only with great difficulty that the tribunes were persuaded to allow national defense to take precedence over party politics."

Like Plebs sulking on the Sacred Mount, this past week progressive factionalists mustered in our nation's capital, for they want to seize the throne and banish the Patricians

[Ghost Dansing]

Well the whole argument is apples and oranges...most Democrats agree that this Republican administration demonstrated breathtaking incompetence in choosing Iraq as the second action in the war on terror...then prosecuted the war incompetently and pretty much jeopardized any small good that can come of it.

Then, there is the question of what to do after the mistake was made...Murtha is correct and on the ball...there is little more to be accomplished in Iraq militarily...we might as well get out of the way and let them have their civil war, ethnic cleansing or whatever, establish their Shia Islamic Republic...cozy up to Iran and we can all get on with our lives.

Not all Democrats...by nature free thinkers, are of the same mind as to what is to be done with the mess.

Hillary likes the "stay the course" rhetoric...whatever...Dubya is going to have to withdraw out of necessity...the Iraqi government is already making noises about withdrawal during 2008. Joe Lieberman is, after all, from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party...a Clintonite DLC type...and not only does he like the Republican's war rhetoric, he likes their corporatist economics, and would probably feel comfortable being the Vice Presidential candidate on a Republican ticket.

Heck, the best we can hope for is that the violence in Iraq take on less of a jihadi flavor and more of an Iraqi nationalistic insurgency...however since you're dealing with both Shia and Sunni Islamic extremists in the mix both in the political process and political violence...the core Sunni population that could be thought of as secular are by-and-large the Baathist Saddamists...who appear to be very much in the minority at this point.

However, back to the issue of the Democrats...it is like the Republicans sort of left a big pile of fecal matter, and the Democrats are unsure as how to actually polish it up so it looks good.

[gringoman]

This Just In: While Republicans ( and who needs to mention Democrats?)continue to reveal themselves (despite some warrior tendencies) as pale, confused philistines in the profound GWB (Global War of Belief), there's been a show of decency and maturity at Camp Pendleton, CA. The father of one of the prisoners in the brig reports that the young Marines have been unshackled. And there's more: Vice-President Cheney, it's reported, has become the first Administration official (from Bush on down) to make it clear that these Marines from Iraq are innocent until proven guilty. (You may Hurrah for this concession.) The Marine Dad above, however, continues to point out how even the Marine command has let down these (un-charged)young Marines. An observer from the 'Nam could have told him: The brass will almost always buckle when the politicans buckle under whatever new "case" their enemies can dredge up. The Marine Dad would know it well by now. He speaks of his disappointment at top officers. Under pressure from the Haditha "Incident," the Band of Brothers is looking more like a bunch of butt-covering brass. They even seem more concerned with whether a song-relief from battle fatigue, "Hadji Girl," is politically correct, than they are with the conditions that send their troopers to Arlington or the amputee ward at Walter Reed, doing the work that most "citizens" will not do.

Another minor skirmish in the epic GWB.

[Francis W. Porretto]

The fringe elements of the Left can terrify the Democratic Party's strategists as disproportionately as they do because the Democrats have staked their fortunes entirely upon special-interest / redistribution politics. This approach can bring a party right to the edge of majority status, but at that point, the elements of the special-interest coalition begin to struggle with one another for control of the agenda. Because the coalition is teetering at the border of electoral victory, every group in it can destroy the coalition's prospects simply by withdrawing its support.

The Kossacks are very much aware of how the Democrats' strategists fear them. Given the narrow margins in many a recent election, and the success of the GOP's more principle-centered strategy, you'd think they'd draw the moral. But as with many a sports franchise that dreams that the world championship is just one more superstar free-agent away, the seductive illusion of victory near at hand has kept them from revamping their politics and rediscovering the power of standing for something other than robbing Peter to pay Paul.