Posted on 09/13/2004 6:37:56 PM PDT by Pikamax
Saturday, Sep. 11, 2004 All You Have to Do Is Believe Though so much in Iraq has gone wrong, Bush still thinks he 's right By JOE KLEIN A long time ago last week, the vice president of the United States said that if John Kerry is elected President "the danger is that we'll get hit again" by terrorists. It was an outrageous statement, which exposed the rampaging hubris of the Republican Party these daysand it should have been a big story. But the Cheney flap disappeared within 24 hours, in a week that exploded a month's worth of political bombshells. A new book by the professional sensationalist Kitty Kelley accused George Bush of using cocaine at Camp David when his father was President. CBS News revealed documents that indicated Bush had disobeyed orders, avoided service and received "sugar-coated" treatment when his performance was evaluated in the National Guard. And then, within hours, both stories were knocked downa source for the cocaine story recanted, and some conservative bloggers charged the documents were forgeries. By week's end, the mudslinging had been successfully muddled: the controversy was now about the stories, not the President.
Meanwhile, in the real world, Russia was recovering from a horrific terrorist attack that left at least 338 deadmostly childrenwhich put an exclamation point on the President's claim that we are fighting a global war against terrorism. At the same time, though, the U.S. military acknowledged the sobering fact that there were now "no-go" zones in Iraq, areas the U.S. had ceded to the terroristsmuch of the so-called Sunni triangle, for examplewhich put a question mark on the President's claim that he was aggressively fighting that war. At the end of all that, the President's post-convention bounce had settled into a solid lead.
Democrats were perplexed, depressed and awestruck. How could Cheney get away with saying, in effect, that a vote for Kerry was a vote for terrorism? More to the point, how could Bush get away with, well, everything: a misspent youth, a lifetime of insider trading on the family name, a misfought war, a misleading inference that the invasion of Iraq had some vague relevance to 9/11, a presidency marked by rampant corporate cronyism at home and abroad? "If we can't beat this guy, with this record ..." a prominent Democrat said to me. He was unable to finish the sentence.
There are all sorts of theories for Bush's recent success. The Republicans are brilliant and brazen demolition experts. The Democrats play hardball at the peewee-league level. Kerry is Dukakis, after alldeadly dull, slow to respond, trapped in Democratic banality: he actually said he was for "good jobs at good wages" last week. All of which are more or less true, but peripheral. The real story is quite simple. Bush seems to believe what he says and Kerry doesn't quite.
That is not to say that the things Bush believes are true. The war in Iraq was not a necessity. It is more likely to result in regional chaos than in the "benign domino effect" of regional democracy promised by neoconservatives. But Bush truly believesand these are admirable beliefsin the power of "freedom" and the evil of Islamist radicalism. He is secure enough to acknowledge the possibility that he might be proved wrong. Two weeks ago, he told TIME that history would be the judge of his policiesit would take decades to sort it all outbut he was confident about the choices he had made.
Kerry seems unable, or unwilling, to confront Bush directly on this ground. Every word he utters about Iraq smacks of politics. Last week he finally said the war was "wrong," but thenin a crass, consultant-driven momentturned the disaster into a financial transaction. Bush had spent $200 billion in Iraq that could have been spent at home. Leave aside the fact that $200 billion is a meaningless number to a nation inured to billion-dollar tags for just about everything. Leave aside the fact that most Americans would willingly have spent the moneyand, more to the point, the livesif the policy had actually made us safer. A much stronger argument was available, given the recent events in Iraq: Bush has chosen not to fight in the Sunni triangle, and the war cannot be won until he does. "You can't allow the enemy to have sanctuaries and expect to win," John McCain told me. "You have to go in and dig them out."
Kerry could have challenged Bush: "Fight the war, Mr. President, or bring the troops home." It would have been blunt, strong, simpleindeed, simplistic, just as Bush often isbut it might also have put the President on the defensive for a change. Kerry wouldn't even have to say what he would do: he could legitimately argue that would depend on the situation on the ground in January. It would also, I suspect, reflect Kerry's true feelings: that Bush has waged an incompetent war in Iraq, which he is in serious danger of losing.
Democrats were perplexed, depressed and awestruck. How could Cheney get away with saying, in effect, that a vote for Kerry was a vote for terrorism?
The same way Kerry got away with saying Bush not extending the gun ban was helping arm terrorists--to NO outcry from the media.
Well, I'm in Ireland. And I won't vote in this US Presidential election. But the outcome of it WILL affect me. Becaue the leader of Free World, and the policies he pursues, have a knock on affect throughout the free world.
I want to see a man who is SECURE in his own judgement, and a man SECURE in his own mind about terrorism in that position.
History may well be the judge.
And I truly believe, history will be very kind to George W. Bush.
Meanwhile, in the real world, Russia was recovering from a horrific terrorist attack that left at least 338 deadmostly childrenwhich put an exclamation point on the President's claim that we are fighting a global war against terrorism
Russian children should have picked a more convenient time to get themselves murdered.
Was he the "prominent Democrat" he spoke to?
It is my understanding that there is an Arabic word called "Hayba". Hayba is an attribute of leadership. It consists of clearly demonstrated magnanimity towards those who serve him well and savagery towards enemies. A strong leader must be feared.
The Iraqi government must demonstrate its hayba if it is to rule. It must level Fallujah, Ramadi, and Samarra (funny how Sunni militants are swarming there with no where to go.) and generously accept the surrender of the survivors.
This one runs all over the field hoping to hit some kind of explosive..... They appear to really have no clue at this stage.... If it can only persist for 50 more days.....
Joey, you forgot to mention that your man served in Vietnam.
Of course Bush has ceded zones in Iraq to insurgents. But this is not a sign of Bush's failure--as the terrorists and leftwing pundits believe. It is rather a measure of Bush's strategic thinking. This was a deliberate tactic--designed to minimize our casualties until after the election when Bush can better focus on an all-out effort. Right now, given how the old media exploits any casualties for political benefit, it is better to temporarily cede some ground. Once the election is over, Bush can pull out the stops and clobber the enemy.
The only thing they didn't have was a viable candidate or a message that was palatable to the sane part of the electorate. Instead, all they had was a empty suit from Massachussetts, a soulless, pandering 60-going-on-18 cad whose only talent was seducing rich widows and who would sooner swallow the fragments of his glass jaw than take a definitive stand on anything. And on top of that, his personality was about as warm and loveable as a syphilitic porcupine.
But the left soldiered on anyway, figuring that they could conceal all this from the public with a slick marketing campaign and a lot of look-the-other-way. After all, they had the media and Hollywood. But they once again underestimated the American people, and they once again underestimated the power of the alternative media that has sprung up to fill the immense demand for news and information that isn't condescendingly presented from the far left perspective.
Sadly, our military and political leadership are likely unprepared for the Sunni Tet Offensive that is going to explode soon.
We never seem to be ready for the easily foreseeable. It's going to get bloody; I hope we have the stomach to kill about 4-5000 of them.
LOL! The Mother-of-all Flip-Flops!
Ah, the irony.
On what facts do you base this readiness assessment?
And nor does anyone else...LOL...
Sorry Joe, but you left out the most important part of the statement! I can't believe that other media will let these "Clymers" get away with completely twisting the meaning of what Vice President Cheyney said. All he had to do was finish the statement, and the meaning becomes clear.
The actual statement was (paraphrased, since I don't have the original text in front of me, and I'm too tired to go look it up...)
"if John Kerry is elected President "the danger is that we'll get hit again" by terrorists, and go back to treating terrorism as a law enforcement problem, like before Sept 11, 2001.
It's a simple statement, and one that Kerry has stated himself.
The fact that no other media outlet is hanging Klein out to dry is proof positive that there's a conspiracy of silence in the main-stream media to get rid of President Bush, and they're willing to sacrifice anything for their goal, including "journalistic integrity," which I now classify with Santa, the Easter Bunny, and tinkerbell: Figments of the imagination.
Mark
1000 dead for starters.
Fallujah: We lost several Marines while taking 1/3-1/2 the city, then stopped and pull back. This was Sanchez' plan.
Sadr-city: We fought for more than 2 weeks, then let Sadr go!
We're not serious about winning, otherwise we would be exterminating the 5000-10,000 unfriendlies in Iraq. The pace is way too slow. We are trying to do this operation without breaking any dishes, and to please public opinion.
Public Opinion wouldn't matter if we were serious. The parameters for use of force would be loosened up to complete the job-world opinion be damned.
More Americans will likely have to be rubbed out at home before we get serious, I'm sorry to say. I only hope it isn't too bad, or too late.
That's how I see it.
One might even suspect that, even as Iraq was "flypaper" for jihadists, Fallujah, et al, might be serving as "flypaper" for those who remain in Iraq.
Let them all gather in a few isolated locales. Then, apply the roachicide...
I want Bush to win for a lot of reasons but one of the main ones is for Joe Klein and his friends to shut the f%$# up!
Hell...that's 3 strikes in this ballgame just by itself.
This is an outrageous story which exposes the rampaging bias of the print media, that should be the big story jerk.
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