The usual Orwellian trappings were there. Huge "Plan for Victory" signs were all over the speaking platform at the Naval Academy on November 30, 2005. President Rove, wearing his GWB cowboy costume, declared:
We will never back down, we will never give in, and we will never accept anything less than complete victory.
Where has "victory" gone? This diary explains that Rove no longer views victory as a saleable product, and he has shifted his lexical strategy to focus on "defeat," as something to be avoided at all costs.
Rove was deeply scarred by America's defeat in Vietnam. He believes that America should have continued to fight that war, with unrelenting ferocity, indefinitely. Now he has his own neo-colonial war, but he has reluctantly concluded that he is not going to achieve a military victory. Rove's signature political tactic is making a weakness into a strength, so this is a big opportunity.
Rove's personality reflects the collective fear of humiliation of millions of insecure American men. Defeat, humiliating defeat, is their Room 101 - the most dreaded thing in their lives. Rove's mission is now depicting his political adversaries as bent on the humiliation of the United States.
The bizarre logic of Rove's real war strategy is that we are now fighting to avoid humiliation. As long as we don't lose, we "win" because we avoid embarrassment. Surely that is worth sending young Americans to die. Look for SURRENDER, TREASON, BETRAYAL, and HUMILIATION to be the new rhetorical weapons unleashed by Rove.
Democrats can fight back by asking what happened to the "Plan for Victory?" They should also ask when does it become more humiliating to compound an error than to accept that an error was made.
The media should take note of this strange case of vanishing "Victory," and should point out how posturing and slogans have led to nothing but waste and ruin in Iraq. That would be a small victory for truth.