Posted on 01/20/2007 7:52:29 AM PST by Valin
EVERYONE’S HEARD of the 9/11 Democrats. The 9/11 Democrats are people like actor Ron Silver, comedian Dennis Miller and blogger/author Roger L. Simon. Stunned by the events of September 11, these people surveyed the political landscape and developed new views. A seismic event changed them and changed their politics.
A less noble creature is currently crawling out from Washington D.C.’s swamps. These are the 11/7 Republicans. Stunned by the election results of November 7, these Republican office holders surveyed the political landscape and decided that they had to distance themselves from the Iraq war to have any chance of preserving their political viability. While the 9/11 Democrats worry about the future of the country and matters of the highest principle, the 11/7 Republicans worry about their own craven interests in a completely unprincipled fashion.
THE POSTER CHILD FOR THE 11/7 Republicans is Senator Gordon Smith of Oregon. Oregon is a blue state (or a purple state if you’re a cockeyed Republican optimist), and Smith is up for re-election in 2008.
After the 11/7 election results, Smith had several epiphanies regarding the Iraq war, epiphanies he shared with the country on December 8. In an address that ephemerally made him a hero to the inmates in the virtual insane asylum that is the Daily Kos, Smith distanced himself from the war effort that he had long supported. From the well of the Senate, he forthrightly declared, “I, for one, am at the end of my rope when it comes to supporting a policy that has our soldiers patrolling the same streets in the same way, being blown up by the same bombs day after day. That is absurd. It may even be criminal.”
Declaring the Bush administration “criminal” may knock ‘em dead in the liberal blogosphere, but conservatives were decidedly underwhelmed.
Some conservative cynics even questioned the timing of Smith’s revelations. In the same address, he confided to the nation that he had been nursing growing doubts about the war for quite some time. The fact that he unburdened himself of these doubts only after the cataclysm of 11/7 seemed a tad curious. After all, if he felt the prosecution of the war was perhaps “criminal,” surely he shouldn’t have sat on such sentiments merely because there was an election afoot. That wouldn’t have been much of a profile in courage.
As a matter of fact, Smith’s entire December 8 address didn’t register very high on the political courage meter. Putting the fulminating against the administration aside, it was impossible to determine what Smith wanted or was recommending with his December 8 stem-winder. Regarding the then-recently released Iraq Study Group report, Smith was a veritable profile in ambivalence. At one point in the speech, he “welcome(d) the report” and observed that the “commission has just done some, I suppose, good work.” A few paragraphs later, he was less committal, downgrading his assessment to, “The Iraq Study Group has given us some ideas. I don't know if they are good or not.” A mere two sentences later, Smith castigated the report for counseling a strategy of “cut and walk.”
Even after his December 8 speech, Smith was not done with his amusing displays of intellectual incoherence. After the plans for the surge were announced, Smith released a statement labeling it “the President’s Hail Mary pass.” And yet he proclaimed himself a stalwart supporter of the troops, even while he publicly belittled their mission and their chances of success.
SO WHAT DOES GORDON SMITH, the poster child for the 11/7 Republicans, really want? Regrettably, Senator Smith was unable to grant me an interview, but I did get to chat for a few minutes with his spokesman, R.C. Hammond.
Hammond bristled at my suggestion that Smith’s comments on the war had anything to do with the Senator’s reelection campaign. Quite the contrary, according to Hammond, the two aren’t related at all. When I raised the issue regarding the odd timing of Smith choosing to unburden himself of his concerns only after the 11/7 cataclysm, an annoyed Hammond assured me that Smith’s December 8 speech was the result of six months of analysis and reflection.
As regards the Gordon Smith Plan for Iraq, the key ingredients seem to be saying “whatever the generals want” while offering yet more intellectual incoherence. For instance, Hammond says that the Smith plan would forbid Americans from engaging anything that has the fetid stench of sectarian strife. So while Smith would allow U.S. troops to engage al Qaeda fighters, the hostile, destructive and allied-with-Iran Sadr militia would be off limits. The Smith plan, as expressed in his December 8 address and as Hammond explained it to me, would have American troops withdraw to the “horizon.” Whether the “horizon” is in Sadr City, Anbar or Okinawa has been left maddeningly undefined.
DURING HIS DECEMBER 8 SPEECH, Smith referenced the fact several times that he is a “student of military history.” As a self-professed military history buff, I hope Smith appreciates the following analogy: Smith is leading his Senate career and potentially his entire party into a political Cannae.
Conservatives who have been and remain stalwarts on the war will be disgusted by Smith’s change of heart and tone. Longtime opponents of the war will not welcome him into their fold. Even those who have traveled a similar intellectual path as Smith claims to have journeyed will find the sincerity of his alleged epiphanies, given their timing, to be implausible.
In short, Smith, any like-minded Republican Senators and the RNC if it decides to support such Senators, will wind up like the Romans at Cannae: Surrounded by hostiles, without friends, cut off from the outside world. Like the Romans at Cannae, their fate will also be destruction.
And it will be deserved. The fact that the 11/7 Republicans are prepared to play politics with matters of such import is contemptible. On Friday, my co-blogger Hugh Hewitt published the thoughts of Lieutenant Mark Daily, a UCLA grad who joined the army a week after we declared war on Saddam with the full intention of serving in Iraq. On why he decided to serve, Daily wrote:
“I simply decided that the time for candid discussions of the oppressed was over, and I joined…Please remember that America's commitment to overthrow Saddam Hussein and his sons existed before the current administration and would exist into our future children's lives had we not acted. Please remember that the problems that plague Iraq today were set in motion centuries ago and were up until now held back by the most cruel of cages. Don't forget that human beings have a responsibility to one another and that Americans will always have a responsibility to the oppressed. Don't overlook the obvious reasons to disagree with the war but don't cheapen the moral aspects either. Assisting a formerly oppressed population in converting their torn society into a plural, democratic one is dangerous and difficult business, especially when being attacked and sabotaged from literally every direction.”
Mark Daily was killed in Iraq this past Monday. To say that the Mark Dailys of our country deserve better than craven political opportunists like the 11/7 Republicans is to merely state the obvious.
But hey, perhaps I have Gordon Smith all wrong. Like I said, I tried to interview him to hear his side of the story. But if he feels any of this is unfair, I can offer him a far greater forum than Townhall.com to set the record straight. Hugh Hewitt has authorized me to extend an invitation to Senator Smith to appear on his radio show.
Hugh and I both hope the Senator accepts.
Dean Barnett blogs almost daily at HughHewitt.com. He has also been a frequent contributor to the Weekly Standard's online edition, The Daily Standard. He can be reached for comment at soxblog@aol.com.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
BTW, for more information on Lt Mark Daily see here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1770724/posts
Friday, January 19, 2007
Weekend Work: Stopping The Retreatists In The Senate From Undercutting The Troops
Posted by Hugh Hewitt | 6:32 PM
http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/g/34d99fd9-2649-4d97-ad3f-004ec3bfd414
The decision of the democrats --manifest over the ten days since the president's Library Room speech-- to go into full opposition to the war and to demand withdrawal signals a crucial moment in American history. Former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsak started the sprint to the left among the would-be presidents, and Nancy Pelosi's condemnation of the "escalation" and Harry Reid's warning --profoundly wrong-- that "The president does not have the authority to launch military action in Iran without first seeking Congressional authorization" combine with sharp turn left to underscore that the president and the military are now facing not just a relentless enemy abroad but a political opposition blind to the consequences to the region of withdrawal, and not just the region, but to American people.
It is against this backdrop that Congressional Republicans, and especially GOP senators, have to prepare for a combined MSM-Democratic activist assault on them, an assault which has already turned two --Hagel and Snowe-- into retreatists. The ominous word that Senator Warner is circulating a "compromise" draft of a non-binding resolution brings immediately to mind the disastrous "compromise" resolution of December, 2005 that Senator Warner midwifed, which dealt a huge blow to the Adminstration and divided the president's supporters. Even though the president did his best to put lipstick on that pig, the damage done by the attempt to "compromise" with the anti-war Democrats was doomed, just as this effort would be.
We have quickly arrived at a moment where the sides are going to line up, and Republicans on the wrong side of that line --and that would include so-called "compromises" that are in fact slow motion retreats-- will not only not get support from the GOP base, they will see a revolt in their re-election campaigns like the one which Lincoln Chafee encountered. (Dean expands on this theme in his new column, "The 11/7 Republicans.")
Please take a moment to call or write the three GOP senators identified with the half sell-out of the war and the troops: Senator Warner, Senator Collins of Maine, and Senator Smith of Oregon. There is also concern that Senator Brownback will vote for one of the resolutions that John McCain has accurately labeled "defeatist." Please contact Senator Brownback as well.
Senator Warner's e-mail is here. His phone number is 202- 224-2023.
Senator Collins' e-mail is here. Her phone number is 202-224-2523.
Senator Smith's e-mail is here. His phone number is 202-224 3753.
Senator Brownback's e-mail is here. His phone number is 202-224-6521.
Please call and e-mail these senators and urge them to rethink their support for a resolution which will be cheered by the enemy.
(snip)
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Very good article. Thanks for posting. (ping)
We could grab 100 people off the street, have them read "The Constitution for Dummies" greatly improve over these 100 sneators ;)
I can see it now...
"...3...6....1... and the final number.....7! 3617! If you're over 35 and the last 4 of your SSN is 3617, you've just been entered into the California Senator semi-finals! Stay tuned, and we'll find out who the lucky winner is after a word from our sponsors!"
:) Do that every day! Raise money to reduce the deficit and have "Senators for a Day" (doing zero damage) symbolically giving speeches (any speech they want for winning the lottery).
"Don't forget that human beings have a responsibility to one another and that Americans will always have a responsibility to the oppressed."
No we do not. We have an obligation to defend ourselves against those who threaten us. Not to nation build turd world countries beset by any number of tribal,clan, sectarian or ethnic conflict. Period.
bttt
Agreed.
If the war in Iraq is not about our security, we shouldn't be there.
No more nation-building.
I wonder what these senators would do had they been the neighbors of Ann Frank?
If Smith loses, the moderate and liberal GOP will say that there must be a change in the GOP away from the conservatives. This is like a broken record.
Such political maneuvers are predictable. An officeholder who does not reflect the opinions of his constituency will be replaced by one who does. The fault here is with President Bush; he failed to win the war within a politically-acceptable time frame.
"Brownback too morphed from conservative to RINO. That has doomed him as a viable GOP prospect in 2008."
If you can morph from conservative to RINO, you probably weren't a conservative in the first place.
If the war in Iraq is not about our security, we shouldn't be there.
No more nation-building.
You do understand that nation building is a large part of the GWOT and the battle for Iraq. And YES Iraq is about our security. Our security in a world that is getting smaller and more interconnected every day.
We really need to repeal the 17th Amendment, if we want to improve the Senate.
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