I watched Fox News Sunday today. My satellite receiver was dislodged by some roofing repairs, and Fox is the only channel I get well via `regular' TV; otherwise I would not have watched it. They had two Democrats on the show, Tony Podesta and Simon Rosenberg. Later in the morning, I watched Meet the Press too, with Rep John Murtha.
Chris Wallace (how can he call himself a journalist? He's a shill for the Republican Party!) was the interviewer on FNS, and he brought up a couple of points, all invalid or contestable.
One of his points was that John Kerry said in 2004 that he defended his vote on giving Bush the power to invade Iraq back in 2002, and now Kerry says that vote was wrong. Chris Wallace asked Podesta if that didn't show weakness and indicate a problem with Kerry's decision-making power. Podesta did a good job refuting that point, and I believe that the Democrats need to make this point over and over again. It's a strength that they try to turn into a weakness, and we need to highlight that, and not let them twist it around.
That supposed weakness?
Changing your mind. Not walking in lockstep. Not having party unity (without a `leader' of the party in the top office, it's not surprising that we don't have party unity!)
But is that a weakness?
No, it's not. Again we see the Republicans trying to turn our strength into a weakness.
Our strength? That we can learn from our mistakes. That we are open to change. That when we see that "staying the course is not solving the problem", as Rep John Murtha said this morning on MTP, we should welcome change! Karl Rove went to New Hampshire and tried to smear the Democrats by saying that they want to "cut and run". Murtha ridiculed the "stay the course" message, and said that we need to change direction because what we are not doing now is not working. He says that at some point you need to reassess things when they are going badly! Murtha suggested that continuing to push the current policy in Iraq is the same as "supporting a failed policy wrapped in an illusion."
Our strength is that we can acknowledge our errors. They have tried to turn that into a weakness. It's not. It's reality. Acknowledging reality is a good thing! Murtha brings up that we could have fully funded child healthcare or no child left behind with just a few months worth of the billions of dollars we are spending on the war in Iraq. He says we have a $50 billion dollar military equipment bill that will come due once we leave Iraq. We're losing ground in Iraq. 30 months ago there were 500 insurgents in Iraq. Now there are 15,000 to 20,000. That's not success any way you try to spin it!
We need political leaders that can confront the misleading comments from those on the right and explain how it's a good thing to want change.
Conservatives have never liked change. Rightwingers don't want to change the way they define marriage. They don't want to change the track we are on in Iraq, even in the face of all the evidence that what we are doing is not working!
That's the definition of stupidity - to keep doing what you know is not working, and hoping that it will suddenly start working!
Brit Hume dismissively said that the Democratic Party is the party that talks about leaving Iraq. Shouldn't both parties be talking about leaving Iraq? How is it a bad thing that Democrats are talking about getting out and making Iraqi's take care of Iraq? Of course it's not a bad thing! He also said that Americans don't want to turn the country over to a party that doesn't want to fight, but that's a strawman argument. The Democrats don't have a problem fighting. They have a problem fighting the wrong wars in the wrong way and sticking with a wrong plan for an extended time. That's a good thing, and we need politicians that can push that talking point! Even the US Ambassador to Iraq says that we have 6 months to turn Iraq around. "The next six months will be truly critical for Iraq," Khalilzad said.
If Iraq was going so well, would we need to turn it around? Of course not! You turn things around that are heading in the wrong direction!
The Republicans have turned the troops into political pawns. We need more Democrats like Murtha who will push that. It's not a weakness to want our troops to fight to protect America from threats to America. Iraq was never a threat to America. It's a good thing to recognize that today, and is not a weakness to be able to admit that. It's a weakness on the part of the Bush Administration and those Republicans that support them that they cannot admit their errors! That's the weakness! Brit Hume said that the knock against the Democrats is that they are not big on national security, but the war in Iraq is not protecting our national security. Fighting them `over there' is not protecting us, however. "Fighting them where they choose to fight us" is what Brit Hume said, but the only reason that Al Qaeda is in Iraq is because we invaded Iraq! Only 10% of the troublemakers in Iraq are Al Qaeda. 90% are Iraqi's trying to force us out of their country. We're putting American soldiers in harm's way not for America's national security, but for the security of Iraq. Since we make Iraq insecure by invading them, we do have some responsibility to help them, but it's not a valid argument to say that we are protecting our national security by doing so! Yet Brit Hume points out that the recently released Democratic platform made no mention of Iraq, and he says that it means that we don't care about national security. Iraq is not about our national security. We need politicians that can refute that talking point. Our lack of support for continuing down the same misguided path the President has us on in Iraq is not a weakness - it's a strength! The newest Democratic platform is an interesting document, and you should review it if you haven't already.
The Republican Party, under the leadership of Karl Rove and others, has done a good job of turning our true strengths into our assumed weaknesses. John Kerry's leadership in Vietnam, his strength under fire, the loyalty of those who served directly with him, and his willingness to acknowledge our nation's errors once he left Vietnam were all strengths. Kerry and the Democratic Party allowed the SBV's and other Bushites to distort that record and they convinced some of the American public that they were his weakest points, and that they could not trust Kerry to provide the security that America needed. We cannot let them do that again.
We need politicians that can defend our flexibility and our willingness to change our minds as valuable traits. We need them to showcase our thoughtfulness and our ability to drill down into problems to look for inventive solutions as a positive. It's a good thing to be open to a variety of opinions. We need to point out that in the Bush Administration, there is no variety of opinion that is sustained. When Colin Powell tried to introduce different options, he was kicked out (or voluntarily demanded to leave because he couldn't stand it anymore!) of the top cabinet position as a result! The Bush Administration has had a variety of preconceived notions about what works and what doesn't. Even when the evidence doesn't support the implementation of one of their plans, they go ahead with it. That's not a strength. Stubbornness in the face of contrary evidence is not a good trait! They knew by January of 2003 that Saddam likely didn't have any WMD's, but they still went ahead with their invasion plans. They saw how badly the tax cuts for the most wealthy in our nation hobbled the budget, and they saw how the deficit was skyrocketing, yet they did not change their plans. THAT'S a weakness! Learning from your mistakes is a strength!
Can't we get some politicians in the Democratic Party who can figure this out and explain it to the American public?