Leaders of the Opposition (NYT bias alert)

New York Times ^ | March 29, 2005 | Noam Scheiber

[billorites]

Washington — ACCORDING to a now infamous memo circulated among Republican senators, the Terri Schiavo case is a "great political issue" for their party. The memo is half right: the case may be good politics - but for Democrats. After all, in defending their intervention, Republican leaders in Congress have marshaled traditionally liberal arguments about the federal government's obligations to its citizens.

Indeed, the practical effect of the idealistic arguments the Republican leadership puts forth to defend much of its agenda - from health care to education to immigration reform - may be to sell the middle of the electorate on longtime Democratic positions.

This phenomenon may be most pronounced in foreign policy, the president's defining issue. It is true that the president can claim that recent events in Lebanon, Egypt and even Kyrgyzstan vindicate his decision to invade Iraq, and so may bolster his party. If this trend toward democratization continues, however, Democrats may be better positioned to capitalize on it politically.

The reason is that - as with education, health care and immigration - promoting liberal democracy is a project Democrats have historically embraced. As late as 2001, according to a Gallup poll, more Democrats than Republicans were likely to say that building democracies, protecting weak nations from invasion and defending human rights are "very important foreign policy goals."

These results are hardly surprising. The Republican base consists primarily of Southern and Plains-states isolationists, Western libertarians and business groups like the United States Chamber of Commerce. None of these elements gets particularly excited about democratizing foreign countries - because they think it's a utopian project doomed to fail, or they think it's likely to do more harm than good, or they think the money could be better spent on tax cuts. Even conservative evangelicals, some of whom have waged exceptionally noble human rights campaigns in recent years, tend to give priority to domestic issues like gay marriage.

Except for a small circle of neoconservative intellectuals, most conservatives are nationalists: they support an activist foreign policy when it serves a narrow definition of American interests and oppose it when it doesn't. "Traditional conservatives supported military action against Iraq because its totalitarian regime was a threat to America, and because the spread of freedom there might promote American interests in a strategically important part of the world," wrote Ramesh Ponnuru in The National Review a few months after the invasion began. "Their stance implies no support for a generalized program of global good works."

The Democratic base, by contrast, consists of a coalition of minorities, Hollywood celebrities, latte-sipping liberals and an army of dedicated do-gooders - advocates for women's rights, for civil liberties, for the poor, and for the homeless, labor groups, environmental groups ... you get the idea. They are exactly the kinds of people who could be expected to support a "generalized program of global good works."

In practice, of course, Republicans have typically supported the president's democratization agenda while Democrats have opposed it. But by and large the reasons for this were partisan. There is nonetheless evidence that members of both parties occasionally act from principle.

When the administration requested $20 billion in reconstruction grants for Iraq and Afghanistan in the fall of 2003, for example, many Republican members of Congress complained that the figure was too generous and insisted on converting half the amount into a loan. Meanwhile, Senator Ted Kennedy recently conceded that President Bush's foreign policy has resulted in "enormously constructive" changes in the Middle East.

This dynamic gives Democrats a potentially huge opening if democracy takes root in nations like Iraq in the next few years - and if Middle America embraces it. (Both big ifs, of course. But American voters aren't nearly as isolationist as the caricature suggests; upwards of 60 percent consistently support American participation in United Nations peacekeeping forces.)

By embracing a robust democratization agenda, the Democratic nominee in 2008 will be able to appeal to his base while also claiming the new, pro-democratization center. The Republican nominee, who has to win the nomination of a party at best indifferent to democratization, will enjoy no such luxury. Mr. Bush himself won the Republican nomination in 2000 by promising a far less activist foreign policy than the Clinton administration had advocated.

There are important caveats. It's not a given that Democrats will be able to rise above their partisan dislike of Mr. Bush's war, and their broader suspicion of United States power, in order to embrace democratization. But by 2008 the job of consolidating democracy will probably be primarily nonmilitary in nature. It will involve financing and training indigenous political activists, helping to build highways, schools and hospitals, and nurturing democratic institutions like a free press and labor unions. Which is to say, all the things Republicans roll their eyes at and Democrats have long embraced.

Conversely, it's possible that the Republican Party will nominate a politician who transcends his party's structural hostility to foreign-policy activism. But Republicans typically succeed at selling their rank and file on democratization only if they can make the case that it's a matter of national security. The strategy worked for Ronald Reagan at the height of the cold war, and for Mr. Bush in the aftermath of 9/11. It may be hard to sustain such an approach through 2008.

It is no easy task, appealing to both the mainstream and the rank and file, a lesson many Republican leaders are learning as the story of Terri Schiavo nears its sad end. Great political issues, to borrow a phrase, are not always what they seem.

Noam Scheiber is a senior editor at The New Republic.

[secret garden]

The if-you-repeat-a-lie-often-enough crowd comes through again, as expected.

[gunnedah]

They fail to mention this memo didnt come from Republicans. It was dreamed up by Democrats for their use and purpose and the NYT and MSM media know this and are aiding and abetting the Democrats with it.

[muawiyah]

The NYT continues the lie that the "memo" was even circulated.

Here's some truth for everyone ~ the New York Times, it's owners, managers, editors, writers, reporters and other staff are a clear and present danger to the safety and security of the United States of America and it's people.

[cvq3842]

This is absolutely unbelievable. Orwellian! I was going to say that the MSM has stooped to a new low, but since we didn't have the "alternate media" ten or twenty years ago it might be nothing new.

If the shoe were on the other foot and a "conservative MSM" were doing this, some Democrats and friendly judges would probably look for a way to suspend the First Amendment in a heartbeat. Some might think this is happening already.

[Some Beach]

*The Republican base consists primarily of Southern and Plains-states isolationists, Western libertarians and business groups like the United States Chamber of Commerce*

When are these people going to get a clue they are the ones living on small blue islands with diminishing shorelines.

[Cicero]

You would think they'd hesitate to publish this story a week after it has been proved to be a lie.

But the NY Times is getting increasingly sleazy and increasingly desperate. A newspaper that would keep a certifiable nut case like Maureen Dowd on for years in a prominent, honored position has clearly gone around the bend.

Pathetic. They aren't even on the leading edge with their lies any more.

[blanknoone]

It would have been one thing to repeat ABC's mistake about the origins of the memo when they first made it. It is quite another to repeat it after it was challenged and ABC backed off its own claim. Perhaps the NYT has found out the origins of the memo that came from Dem staffers? Nah, didn't think so.