occams hatchet's diary makes some great points about framing the debate, and putting the GOP on the defensive. His simple terrorism talking point jolted my memory and got me thinking. Occams hatchet's question:
Where's Osama?
Pretty good, right? But in typical Dem fashion I found myself backpedalling and thinking, "But what if they find Osama just before the election?" On the surface this seems like a reasonable concern, but it doesn't square with history.
I'll explain after the jump.
In October of '02, Democarats and even a few Republicans made a
cold calculation. Sure, they had been fed some choice bits of Intel., but they chose not to dig further, not to question, and not to challenge Bush's rationale for war. It wasn't that the evidence was iron-clad, but they felt the political calculation was:
- WMDs in Iraq + Voting for the War= Securing America (Re-election)
- WMDs in Iraq + Not Voting for the War = Wimpy Terrorist-Lover (No Re-election)
The math seemed simple -- vote for the war and you win, and the elections to follow, even after no weapons were found, seemed to bear that out.
Nobody, seemed to be asking the other question, "What if there are NO WMDs?" Dems were so afraid of looking weak on terror that they refused to flip the equation around and place the burden of proof on the Bush Administration to prove that they knew there were weapons. Thus, the burden stayed on Saddam to prove a negative -- "I have no weapons," which is impossible -- "I stopped beating my wife."
Still, it seemed to be the safe bet to blindly vote for the war. Hell, both Presidential candidates were in favor of it. Yet, there is a lesson to be learned from the Republicans: getting it horribly wrong has few consequences. They were all absolutely wrong on the war and Saddam's WMDs, but payed only a small price, if any. Nobody was fired, nobody was tried, and still no major investigation has taken place. The GOP still is considered the party of security, even after the two biggest National Security blunders in US history. Being completely wrong turned out to be a completely safe course of action from both a legal and political standpoint.
We should learn from the GOP that that you can place a risky bet and lose, but still have few consequences. It is more important to make a big show of placing the bet than to win.
So what would happen if the Dems loudly and in unison asked, "Where is Osama?" In one scenario Osama could be the October surprise and it would certainly knock some wind out of their sails. But would Bush and the GOP really get much more of a bounce than they would by capturing Osama if the Dems had stayed silent on the issue? No. In the other scenario, the Dems ask the question and Osama is never found. Trust in the GOP to keep us safe from the terrorist boogeyman is eroded and we win. Let's take a gamble this October. We can't do any worse than before.
There's one more reason to ask the hard questions, to stand against unjust wars or illegal domestic surveillance: it is the right thing to do. I don't expect most of our pols to get that, so I'll be happy if they say the right thing for purely self-serving political purposes.