Sometimes, when I'm feeling blue, or I just need a self-esteem pick me up, I read a few Redstate, right wing blogs and conservative commentaries. Nothing can empower a dejected progressive like discovering how truly powerful and dastardly we can be, and how much fear, suspicion, and dispair we are driving into right wing conservatives.
For example, until reading John Podhoretz's column today, I had no idea just how strategically clever and frightening we progressives can be to right wing conservatives just by joining in the many calls for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to resign. I thought we were just haplessly striking out at obvious stupidity.
But, now I've discovered that we are part of a highly coordinated left wing conspiracy to bring down the Bush Administration and set the entire neocon philosophy back by decades. Don't you feel better already? But, wait it get's better. You have no idea how strategically advanced and clever we progressives have become.
We're Not Just Calling For Rumsfeld's Resignation: But Engaging In A Vast Left Wing Conspiracy
I've already called for Donald Rumsfeld's resignation several times just based on the usual list of incompetences, war crimes, arrogant strategic blunders, ineffectiveness, lack of leadership skills and lack of confidence from the troops.
And was planning to write tonight about GOP Senator Chuck Hagel's (R-NE) call for Rumsfeld's Resignation when I ran across an unusually thought provoking right wing polemic from John Podhoretz's in the New York Post. RUMSFELD'S JOB SECURITY: FIRING HIM LOSES IRAQ
Now after reading Podhoretz's high strung warning to conservatives, he has convinced me that calling for Rumsfeld's resignation is not just the right thing to do for our nation, for all the usually mentioned reasons, but actually, is also a cleaver left wing conspiracy and strategy for bringing down the Bush Administration.
Have you guys been having left wing conspiracy strategy meetings without me? Where can I sign up for this clever conspiracy? It's impossible for me to imagine anyone trying to have a vast left wing conspiracy without inviting me!
This is just too much! The only reasonable explanation I can think of, is that the whole Bush fiasco has gotten so out of control, that the right wing is finally melting down, right before your eyes, from the stress of it all.
April 18, 2006 -- WHAT'S the dumbest thing George W. Bush could possibly do right at this moment - the action that would, more than any other, suggest his presidency was and is all but finished?
The answer: Fire Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Either a forced resignation or a dismissal would effectively bring the Bush presidency to an end.
This is something that Bush's out-and-out foes and opponents of the war in Iraq surely understand, otherwise they wouldn't be salivating over the prospect and doing everything they can to put pressure on the president to make it happen.
But some supporters of the president's efforts in Iraq also seem anxious to see Rummy replaced. These thoughtful people have had problems with the war plan from the start and have been insisting for several years that only with another Defense Secretary can the war plan's mistakes be corrected and the conflict brought to a positive conclusion.
The Aftermath Of A Rumsfeld Firing Or Resignation: Podhoretz's Nightmare Scenario
Here's where the fun begins. When Podhoretz asks us to imagine the frightening aftermath of a Rumsfeld resignation. I've added numbers to selected quotes for reference.
1. The presumption in the press and from gleeful Democrats would be that Bush was effectively acknowledging that the military campaign in Iraq would be doomed to failure with Rummy at the helm.
2. It would be a time for endless recapitulations of the supposed errors in judgment made by Rumsfeld and his people before, during and after the war - all spun to support the contention (from the retired generals who are now on the offensive against Rumsfeld and the State Department types who never liked the whole business) that the war was misconceived and has been badly waged.
3. Days and days of those retrospectives would accelerate the sense of depression and futility among the American people about the prospects for victory in Iraq.
4. In this hothouse atmosphere, Bush would then nominate a successor for Rumsfeld. That nominee, whoever he might be, would have to appear before the Senate in confirmation hearings that probably couldn't start until June.
Joe Lieberman, John McCain, and Chuck Hagel have all been mentioned as possible replacements. Although, I think McCain and Hagel would have to be out of their minds to even consider such a spot. But having Lieberman fill this position might be fortuitous way of solving the problem of getting him out of the Senate.
But back to Podhoretz's worst nightmare scenario, which is starting to cheer me up.
5. Were [the nominee] to defend the president and the war-fighting plan, he'd be derided as a know-nothing yes man. Were he to separate himself from the plan, the matter would not end there. Why wasn't he more supportive of it? Did he believe we could achieve victory in Iraq? And by when?
6. And the Republicans on the committee, looking at the president's poll numbers and the war's unpopularity, would either chime in with Democrats when they thought the occasion warranted or run for the high grass.
7. Other witnesses would be called to testify, ones who'd use the occasion to barnstorm for a quick conclusion to the American presence in Iraq. Once again, Republicans would stand all but mute before them, terrified of saying something that might bring down the wrath of the e-mailers.
8. At the end of this destructive process, the new Secretary of Defense would take the oath of office in the midst of a general meltdown. The American people, hearing no confidence coming from the war's own leaders about the coming victory, would be throwing up their hands in even greater numbers.
9. And the 150,000 brave men and women of our armed forces who are in Iraq attempting to do something great, could not but realize that their countrymen and their leaders were really and truly washing their hands of the effort. At which point they would rightly lose heart, and they too would begin to lobby for a getaway.
Can you imagine the tragedy of the troops demanding an end to this misbegotten and now pointless war? But I found Podhoretz's nightmare the first encouraging scenario for Iraq I've hear so far. Congressional hearings? Debate? Witnesses? Nominees asked to make intelligent comments in front of cameras? Republican's having to chime in? Barnstorming witnesses, troops lobbying to come home?
My goodness, I hadn't really thought of any of this. Previously, my calls for Rumsfeld's resignation had been out of a quite, sad, and fairly hopeless despair that it was yet another unpleasant necessity to do the right thing for the country. And I sort of went along half-heartedly with others who appeared to be going through the motions.
The Birth Of A Viable Democratic Pary Strategic Planning Process?
But now, Podhoretz has made me feel like we Democrats actually have an insightful and coordinated strategy for moving the country ahead. Not just with Cabinent level staffing improvements, Lieberman "redeployment, and public Congressional hearings about soemthing (anything), but for getting the country out of Iraq too!
I think we should all agree that this has been our plan all along.
This is now my story and I'm sticking too it.
Yes, I admit, we thought this all out last year in secret meetings of only the most trusted and devious of progressives. And I, being recognized as the most nefarious, have been the secret ring leader all along!
Yes, and listen here frightened right wing conservatives, we conniving, fearsome, organized progressives are just warming up. Once you hear the rest of our ruthlessly cunning plans you will really tremble in fear.
And I'll, let you know what they are as soon as I get back from my grand tour of right wing paranoid fantasies at RedState, Little Green Footballs, Powerline etc.
I think we've found a solution to adding verve and spunk to our strategic thinking process. LOL
Actually, more like we might have struck a gold mine of potential strategic insight. Sort of like a braistorming process for reverse paranoid delusional projective identification that accidentally gets it right and predicts the lucky break.
And here I've been down in the dumps at the apparent lack of am inspiring and effective strategic process in the Democratic party.
But no more whining and complaining from me about lack of Dmocratic strategy and leadership fellow travelors. I've been to the mountountop of strategic insight. And discovered a true fountain of wisdom
And I now have a dream.
A dream that will ring from the hills of Alabama to the shores of California.
A dream....