Posted on 04/25/2004 11:50:36 AM PDT by knighthawk
It's a good rule of thumb that so-called moderate opinion is several degrees to the left of popular opinion. You can test this for yourself easily enough: pick a subject such as, say, illegal immigration and compare the position of every Democratic senator, the majority of Republican senators and 90 percent of the media with the position of the American people.
That's why the press were befuddled by last week's polls. A month of Richard Clarke, the 9/11 Commission, Bob Woodward, Muqtada al-Sadr, Fallujah and Basra, and a constant drip-drip-drip of conventional wisdom on the president's "vulnerability" from the Beltway to Hollywood to the Ivy League to that brave radio station in Plattsburgh, N.Y., that's now the flagship of Al Franken's Air America ''network'' -- and what happens? Bush's numbers go up and Kerry's go down.
Another six weeks of Dick Clarke's book tour, of snotty network reporters condescending to the president at his press conference, of the sneering Richard Ben Veniste and emotionally unhinged Bob Kerrey badgering Condi Rice at their hack hearings, of Bob Woodward and his unreadable book filling up slabs of CNN's prime time every night with irrelevant arcana about what did Prince Bandar know and when did he tell Woodward he knew it, another six weeks of things that make Bush ''vulnerable,'' and he'd be heading for a 49-state blowout over Kerry.
Don't get me wrong: America's still a 50/50 nation. That's to say, 50 percent of the nation backs Bush, and the other 50 percent either loathe him, or are undecided, or aren't yet paying attention to Campaign '04. I think the president's numbers should be higher.
But the problem for John Kerry is that he and the networks and the New York Times are finding it all but impossible to make any dent in the Bush half. If it is a 50/50 nation, one side's 50 percent is pretty solid and the other's a lot softer.
How can this be? Well, let's turn to our senior political analyst, the late Osama bin Laden. In his final video appearance 2-1/2 years ago, Osama observed that, when people have a choice between a strong horse and a weak horse, they go with the strong horse. But, to take that a stage further, the strong horse doesn't have to be that strong when the other fellow's flogging a dead horse.
The 9/11 Commission? Nobody cares. You can't drive the car when you're staring in the rear-view mirror. And, as those polls showed, if Americans are forcibly plonked in front of that rear-view mirror, they lay more blame on eight years of Clinton administration policy than eight months of Bush administration policy.
WMD? Another dead horse. Whether you were pro-war or anti-war had nothing to do with WMD. Bush thought Saddam Hussein had 'em, but so did the French, Germans and Russians, and they were all anti-war. For most pro-war Americans, the need to whack Saddam was more important than the pretext on which he was whacked. He was unfinished business from Sept. 10. All the rest is footnotes, more rear-view mirror stuff.
That's why even the old quagmire scenario now playing 24/7 on the cable channels doesn't work for Kerry. Visiting foreigners often remark on that popular T-shirt slogan, usually found below the Stars and Stripes: "These Colors Don't Run." To non-Americans, it seems a trifle touchy. But for a quarter-century the presumption of the country's enemies was that those colors did run -- they ran from Vietnam, from the downed choppers in the Iranian desert, from Mogadishu. Even the successful campaigns -- the inconclusively concluded Gulf War and the air-only Kosovo war -- seemed designed to avoid putting those colors in the position of having to run. As Osama saw it, these colors ran from the African embassy bombings, and the Khobar towers, and he pretty much expected them to run from 9/11, too.
A narrow majority of Americans get this: Being seen not to run -- or, if you prefer, being seen to show ''resolve'' -- is now an indispensable objective of U.S. foreign policy. So, when four contractors get lynched and hung off a bridge in Fallujah, poor foolish Sen. Robert Byrd may think it's time for an ''exit strategy,'' but most Americans want to see the thugs who did it hunted down and killed.
One day it will not be necessary to sell ''These Colors Don't Run'' T-shirts. But it is as long as Byrd, Ted Kennedy, Michael Moore & Co. are twitching to add Iraq to the pockmarked pantheon of Vietnam, Iran and Somalia.
The left resists this analysis. ''Resolve,'' they say, may sound macho but it's also simplistic. Not necessarily. In today's phony-baloney world, nuanced inertia is the simple choice, the default mode of international diplomacy, of the U.N. and the European Union. When you dig into what's holding up American resolve on Iraq, the people seem to be making more subtle distinctions than their elites.
Thus, the president's numbers aren't affected by the sob sisters of CNN's Baghdad bureau filing their heartrending reports on how thousands of Baathist apparatchiks haven't been paid since they were made redundant from Saddam's Department of Genital Mutilation and Electrode Clamping last April.
U.S. public opinion is hardheaded about this: The welfare of the Iraqi people is a bonus, but the welfare of the American people is the primary objective. That's why the United States went to war.
That's the problem for the Democrats. If ''resolve'' is the issue, can you beat it with ''nuance''? If I had to name the definitive Kerry campaign headline it would be this, from Britain's (left-wing, Kerry-backing) Guardian last week: ''Kerry Says His 'Family' Owns SUV, Not He.'' That Chevy Suburban in the yard has nothing to do with him. Who you gonna believe? A respected senator or your lying eyes?
His statement is true in the sense that his ''family'' (i.e., Teresa) also owns the house and the grounds, and indeed a big chunk of his presidential campaign. But it's hard to claim that your powers of diplomatic persuasion would have won over the French and Germans when you can't even win over your ''family.'' And do Americans want to hand over responsibility for Iraq to someone who won't even take responsibility for the car in his driveway?
The left is foundering because they don't understand how most of the American people think. Good.
To the unrepayable debt we owe Pat Tillman, we can add that the fact of his celebrity has caused a leap in the number of Americans who now realize that we are involved in a WAR. As this number gets larger our national resolve stiffens. (Even as a certain segment of Congress becomes ever more deeply saddened.)
... NEWSFLASH: Democrats discover that they have no new ideas since the 3 decade old Roe v Wade decision, no positive policy ideas for governing America in the future, and a nasty tendency to complain, criticize, bite ankles, and otherwise act like petulant back seat drivers.
Someone will jump on this as a tagline, as well they should.
Steyn is priceless. Simply priceless!
And thank you, knightkawk for not excerpting!
Thus, the president's numbers aren't affected by the sob sisters of CNN's Baghdad bureau filing their heartrending reports on how thousands of Baathist apparatchiks haven't been paid since they were made redundant from Saddam's Department of Genital Mutilation and Electrode Clamping last April.
No one says it better.
That is the big reason that Hillary will not run in 2004 even if she could defeat George Bush in a landslide.
Does any Democratic leader think that pulling out of Iraq mean we would be safe? Would it occur to Hillary and Bill, for example, that all the attacks on the US in Iraq would be redirected to attacks on the US in Afghanistan?
Would it occur to Hllary and Bill that a withdrawal from the Middle east would encourage the Militant Muslims to make major attacks on the United States mainland. Would the stories that the attacks on our troops in Afghaniistan were coming from Iraq endear Hillary to the voters for pulling out of Iraq.
Consider the consequences of a full or even partial pull out. The Muslims would have total proof that our Colors do run. If they thought it before 911 they would know it now. Would they then pull back and leave us alone, or would they attack in the U.S. with all the force they could muster?
They could surely recruit a few non Arab looking people already in the U.S. They could use truck bombs to destroy 20 elementary schools and 10 shopping centers in one day. Ten thousand dead American children and 10 thousand dead American adults would not aid Hillary's popularity. Would that have the socker mom's screaming hatrid at a President Hillary or what? Can you imagine the people understanding that when the choice was fight them over there or fight them over here, Hillary chose over here?
The other option for a President Hillary would be to stay and fight. The problem is Republicans would not offer a President Hillary much support and the Democrats would turn on her. Hillary would get luke warm suport from Republicans. She would get Teddy Kennedy and Sentor Byrd like support from Democrats. She would face real critism from both the left and the right. She would be in a no win situation. After a terrible attack on the US, Democrats would be in the EAT OUR OWN mode and Hillarys's butt would have an "OUR OWN" tattoo in big red letters.
Democrats have spent the last 4 years burning bipartisan support bridges. There would be few if any pro war votes for a President Hillary from either side of the isle. To win in the middle east will take support from Congress and the people that no Democrat including Hillary could get.
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