The Chicago Tribune is among several papers I monitor in the U.S. and abroad, but it’s December 26, 2006 edition contained a trilogy of treats—profound indications that all is not well, not well indeed, in Conservativeland. You see, I consider the Trib to be a bell-weather of conservative thought. We all know where the WSJ is coming from, and that The Washington Times is owned by the Moonie Loonie, but there in deep blue Chicago, atop ever-bluer Illinois, sits The Mighty Trib, owner of the Cubs and a national media network, with an editorial board somewhere to the right of Rasputin. Imagine my surprise at these three pieces, appearing in the same edition.
While you have the chance, go to chicagotribune.com and, by browsing this week's editions, access the articles while they are free. I won’t link directly to them since you need to register anyway, which is free, and after 7 days, the links are dead and you have to pay an archive fee. Instead, I’ll give you snippets and trust you to track them down in whole if so inclined. The first one that caught my eye was by Chicago political consultant Don Rose, who wrote that the Democratic sweep may be long-lasting and gave a number of good, solid reasons that I’ve subscribed to for some time. He pulls no punches in the intro:
There is strong evidence that November's Democratic sweep may be more than a one-shot reaction to an unpopular president and his war--it might be one of those pivotal elections leading to a lasting, long-term majority in the Congress and potentially the presidency.
He cites all the right game stats, then reaches into the deeper reasons:
Yes, voters reacted against the war and corruption, but also the two-tiered economy, with its increasing income inequality. Many of the incoming senators and House members ran and won on populist economic issues, which have long been a unifying Democratic theme--downplaying some of the more divisive social issues. Though this economy looks good by traditional yardsticks, it clearly doesn't work for large numbers of middle- and working-class families.
Not a guy you'll see on Fox News anytime soon, eh? Here’s where I got excited:
Economics was the glue that bound together Franklin Roosevelt's coalition and it promises again to solidify a majority in the coming years.
Demographic change also is working to the Democrats' advantage as more and more Latinos and Asians register and vote. Republicans made heavy inroads into the Latino vote in 2004, capturing close to 45 percent for George W. Bush, but blew it all and more this year with their torrent of anti-immigrant campaigning. Democrats won 70 percent of the Latino vote and are likely to retain that and gain more in years ahead. This is a factor not only in the Southwest, but also in the Midwest.
Adding to Republican problems, they will have to defend 22 of the 33 Senate seats up in 2008, including four or five vulnerable senators such as Minnesota's Norm Coleman. They also face the possible retirement of perhaps four more senators, leaving open seats that always are more competitive.
As I have pointed out before, gains at state levels are critical factors, as state and local government provides both the "farm team" and the "gate keepers" that shape elections for years, perhaps generations, to come, and if the GOP keeps taking it on the chin there, they are soon going to be decisively out of fashion:
Significantly, Democrats won a majority of the governorships, bringing their total to 28. They won control of 23 state legislatures to 17 for the GOP, while nine states have split bodies. In 15 states Democrats have the governorship and both houses. What this means is they can control the next redistricting--even gerrymandering--and the electoral process itself.
And a BIG THANK YOU to the GOP for their hardline positions on immigration, stem cell research and abortion for delivering this goldmine, which Rose cites as reasons for the "purple mountains’ majesty" in the Rockies:
Those shifts are due in large part to the increasing Latino vote, but also because of political change. In the growing suburban areas around Phoenix, Denver and elsewhere, the hard-line, right-wing issues such as opposing stem-cell research are turning many moderate voters from red to blue. Arizona voters actually rejected an anti-gay-marriage referendum question.
I wish I could quote the whole thing, but due to both copyright and space concerns, I can’t, so I’ll leave you with this bon mot:
If [Democrats] deliver, history may yet see 2006 as tidal an election as was 1932.
Let’s now jump to the front page where this caught my eye:
Baghdad splintered by killings
Ten months of intensifying sectarian attacks have left Iraq's capital desolate and divided
By Liz Sly, Tribune foreign correspondent; Nadeem Majeed contributed to this report
Published December 26, 2006
BAGHDAD -- The once-vibrant streets in this city of 7 million fall eerily silent after 5 p.m., even though the nightly curfew allows people to stay out till 9. In areas where Sunnis and Shiites mingled easily in happier days, usually without knowing their neighbors' religious affiliations, rows of shops stand shuttered and empty, their owners having fled because they found themselves on the wrong side of the sectarian divide.
Ten months after the attack on a Shiite shrine in Samarra unleashed a firestorm of Shiite vengeance on the streets of Baghdad, the sectarian killings that U.S. military commanders now describe as the greatest threat to Iraq's stability are visibly transforming the face of this city into a bleak, frightened shadow of its former self.
What began as a seemingly ad hoc cycle of intimidation and revenge killings by Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias has steadily intensified into what some fear represents a wholesale campaign of sectarian cleansing, in which people are being driven from their homes based solely on their religious affiliation.
Baghdad is now divided, in some instances on a street-by-street basis, into Sunni and Shiite areas through which members of the opposite sect dare not stray. The Tigris River, snaking its way through the heart of the city, serves as an informal front line dissecting the now almost entirely Shiite-controlled east side from the overwhelmingly Sunni west, where Sunni insurgents still hold sway.
Formerly mixed neighborhoods on both sides have turned either wholly Shiite or wholly Sunni. Others are in the process of turning. Every day, trucks piled high with furniture crisscross the river's bridges in just one of the outwardly visible signs of the sinister and still largely silent war that is claiming lives at the rate of about 100 a day.
Sounding more and more like Belfast, isn’t it? And how did THAT work out for the Brits these last, oh,
FOUR HUNDRED YEARS OR SO?!
The article relates one horror after another. I can’t bear, nor will it serve purpose, to repeat them here. Baghdad is as bad a place as bad can be, where being alive the next day is not something to take for granted. One typically horrifying example:
Ibrahim decided to move again after two to three Sunni bodies a day began turning up late last month in Jihad, a telltale sign that Shiite militias are targeting the area and often a trigger for many families to leave before their turn comes.
But his brother, Nabil, 48, a medical worker who had always lived in Jihad, got his timing wrong. On Dec. 11, a few days before he was planning to move, a carload of gunmen suspected of belonging to the Mahdi Army snatched him as he left the clinic where he worked.
Last week his family buried him with the rusty knife that severed his neck still embedded in his spine because they couldn't pull it out. They waded ankle deep in blood through the bodies piled up at Baghdad's morgue, but they did not find his head.
"There was no reason to kill him other than that he is Sunni. This is organized and it is well-planned," said Ibrahim, who moved to Dawoodi, a mostly Sunni but still mixed neighborhood in the Mansour district where he says he feels safer.
And the Maladministration of Pretzledent Idiot Man-Child wants to take sides, favoring Shi’ite on the worst of all possible argumentsd; there’s more of ‘em. Shi’ite? Sheee--it! There’s no damn answer except for us to get the Hell out of Dodge and write big checks to anyone who wants to try and fix this galactic screw-up. Bottom line is, the Trib is delivering the same kind of info we’ve had access to here for a period of (it amazes me to write this) years.
Now here’s the earth-shaker. I’ve seen dueling diaries on "surge" and "size" but I think the real deal is this: Yes, clammyc and other diarists on this point are right, "surge" is code for "escalation" and it will take until 2008 to see we are still failing. This is just Bush buying time. The second, related concept is size of the armed forces. I believe Bush "bought off" the generals on this by promising more troops overall. But wait! The Trib editorial board staunchly opposed Medicare Plan D on cost grounds. Are their conservative stripes showing through the patina of perennial puckering to the Ass of Bush? Witness this editorial:
Do we need a bigger Army?
A few years ago, the U.S. military enjoyed unparalleled supremacy in the world, with the best recruits, state-of-the-art weapons and equipment, vast resources and no formidable rivals. It appeared to be prepared to handle with ease any challenge that could possibly arise. But that was before Iraq.
After nearly four years of fighting insurgents, the Army and Marine Corps are under intense strain. Active-duty combat units have been deployed multiple times to Iraq, and many National Guard and reserve personnel have been required to do more than they ever imagined. The Iraq Study Group warned this month that "U.S. military forces, especially our ground forces, have been stretched nearly to the breaking point." The Bush administration is now considering an increase in troop strength in Iraq, which would mean additional stress.
Conceding what is becoming common knowledge, the editorial writer admits that the increase in overall force size would not help in any way in Iraq and that recruiting would be a problem in and of itself for numerous reasons—again, already familiar to visitors of this site. But here’s the money quote:
While it would be nice to have a bigger force right now, it's not clear that will be needed a few years down the road. Future contingencies are hard to predict--which is one reason we now lack the right force for the current war. Once we are done in Iraq, Americans may be leery of large-scale unconventional wars like this one, which are unusually manpower-intensive. In that case, a bigger Army may be a needless extravagance.
If, on the other hand, Iraq is the template for the wars of the future, then some pertinent questions need to be asked. Such as: Do the Air Force and Navy, which are of limited utility in this sort of conflict, need to be as large as they are, and do they need to keep getting the lion's share of the money for new weapons?
The editorial basically "punts" at the end with one of those "no one knows for sure but we’ll have to figure it out soon" bromides, but you can’t un-ring a bell: a bigger force would be "nice to have?! That's me telling my kids they don't need a hamster to go along with the puppy and turtle. For the Trib to even hint at having an open mind about a smaller force is, to me, astounding in its own right.
For these three pieces to appear on the same day in this paper is almost beyond belief.