"D" is for Democrat and Defeat
by john07801
Thu Apr 05, 2007 at 10:59:15 AM PDT
This is something I’ve been anticipating.
Today’s San Francisco Chronicle features an article on the sure-to-come post-mortem of the War in Iraq.
- john07801's diary :: ::
I always knew one part of Bush's strategy was to delay the end until after he left office so he could claim that his successor walked away from the victory he had made possible. Of course, only that 26% who approve of him (in California) would buy such nonsense.
But the blaming of Democrats is a tried and true strategy:
"In previous instances over the past six decades, Republicans have repeatedly charged Democrats with dangerous weakness in the face of overseas challenges, sometimes to great political effect, and it's a charge experts expect to hear again, perhaps soon.
'It's worked again and again, and it could again,' said Ron Peters, University of Oklahoma political scientist."
Acccording to historian Robert Dallek, the first complaint goes back to FDR,
"The charge that Democrats are weak on national defense goes back to the Yalta conference of early 1945, when ailing Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt accepted Soviet control of Eastern Europe as World War II ended. Betrayal, cried his critics, including many Republicans.
FDR's supporters argued that the president had accepted the reality that the vast Red Army already occupied Eastern Europe and couldn't be dislodged except through another war."
Then Truman,
"'Without question, the critics had by early 1949 convinced many Americans that Truman was, shockingly, abandoning China, China being equivalent with Chiang's dying order,' journalist Robert Donovan wrote in his two-volume history of Truman's presidency."
And even LBJ, although Nixon had succeeded him as president and knew the war in Vietnam was not winnable:
"...telephone transcripts of calls between President Richard Nixon and his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, [showed] that soon after taking office in 1969, Nixon was aware that victory in Vietnam was impossible.
Dallek also quotes the unpublished diaries of Nixon aide H.R. Haldeman, who said, 'Nixon later urged that Democratic critics making this same point should be labeled "the party of surrender."'"
According to Dallek, Nixon is credited with the first "cut-and-run" type of charge. Another fitting tribute to his memory, IMO.
The contributors to the article conclude that even the blame game will be difficult for Bush. The failure in Iraq will simply become official when the last enabling supporter shuts up, just as in Vietnam. Of course, in that case, we also had the harrowing helicopter escape as witness to our retreat.
But Bush’s war hasn’t been limited in any way, as yet, and all eyes are on the current escalation. An informal deadline exists (this summer) after which it would be ill-advised for any politician with career concerns to continue to support the war. And they know it.
I think it’s important to be aware of and prepared for finger-pointing in the war’s aftermath just as much as we’ve understood the realities of "SwiftBoating." My simple, personal goal is to make this known, in advance, to the distracted world of voters in our country. It’s far more believable if it’s predicted up front.
If people weren’t dying, I’d be happy to wait him out and watch him self-destruct. But maybe awareness of his ultimate political goal (as opposed to a military victory (and one for democracy)) might hasten the abandonment of his support.
Pass it on.
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