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Dems under the spell of midsummer's dream
NY Daily News ^ | July 19, 2003 | Zev Chafets

Posted on 07/20/2003 7:24:21 AM PDT by veronica

Summer is the Democratic season of hope.

Last year around this time, they launched a campaign against the impending war in Iraq. President Bush was in Crawford, Tex., playing cowboy when a front-page New York Times headline announced, "Top Republicans Break With Bush on Iraq Strategy."

According to The Times, Brent Scowcroft, the national security adviser under Bush's father, thought the U.S. should be more unilateral. So did Henry Kissinger. House Majority Leader Dick Armey had voiced similar concerns. A mutiny was brewing.

It soon emerged that Kissinger was actually in favor of the war. The posse of critics never grew. Still, many Democrats convinced themselves in the summer of 2002 that Bush was in trouble.

For weeks, nobody could talk about anything else. Nobody that is, on the TV talk shows. The rest of the nation pursued its normal summer activities, which did not include an impassioned analysis of the opinions of Brent Scowcroft.

In September, Bush came back from Crawford, put on a business suit and went to the UN. In short order he gave the critics of the war what they said they wanted, a UN Security Council Resolution, and, in November, what they did not want - a thrashing in the congressional elections. Then, popularity soaring, the President took the country to war.

Now it's summer again, and once more the Dems have a caus célèbre. This time it's Bush's last State of the Union speech, which contained the now infamous 16 words - a claim, attributed to British intelligence, that Iraq had been looking for nuclear material in Africa.

When the flap started last week, Bush admitted that it was a mistake to have said this. CIA Director George Tenet proclaimed his responsibility for the President's misstatement. The next logical step was for Tenet to resign.

Inexplicably, he hasn't. Instead, he seems to be fudging his admission of guilt by blaming the White House staff. This has given the Democrats hope that a State of the Uniongate is possible. They are demanding details: What did the President know, and when did he know it?

So far, their investigation has turned up this: Some guy named Bob Joseph on the national security staff told another guy named Alan Foley at the CIA that he'd appreciate it if the CIA would vet the African uranium claim for the Bush speech. So of course, Foley did, even though he knew (or should have known, or might have known) that yet another guy, Joseph Wilson - a retired second-string diplomat - had conducted an informal, eight-day inquiry and hadn't been able to confirm the uranium story.

Got it?

There are Democrats who think this convoluted bureaucratic squabbling could wreck Bush's credibility. Their optimism was reflected in another front page story in The Times, this time reporting that there are folks in Ohio who are beginning to doubt the President's word.

Sorry, but this isn't going to work. Nobody in Ohio or anyplace else can be persuaded to give a damn about Bob Joseph and Alan Foley and Andrew Wilson and their opinions. In fact, most people don't care about the President's misstatement in the State of the Union. They get the big picture - America is at war. They see that the President gets it, too. And that the Democrats don't.

There is probably enough anti-Bush indignation to feed the summer squall for a few more weeks. By then, the President will be back in Washington, ready to move on to the next stage of the war. He knows from experience that the great rockabilly political philosopher Eddie Cochran was wrong. There is a cure for the summertime blues. It's called September.


TOPICS: Extended News; Government; News/Current Events; Philosophy; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2004; delusions; dems; desperation; wmd

1 posted on 07/20/2003 7:24:21 AM PDT by veronica
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To: veronica
Oh, yeah ...

September. Sounds good. Heat index - 112 today.
2 posted on 07/20/2003 7:27:51 AM PDT by altura
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To: dennisw; SJackson; JohnHuang2; kattracks; dighton; BenF; Nachum; Brian Allen; Sabertooth; ...
FYI.
3 posted on 07/20/2003 7:30:09 AM PDT by veronica (http://www.petitiononline.com/KN50711/petition.html - Confirm Daniel Pipes to USIP ......sign this!)
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To: veronica
This is right on. The Dems are about to step in this BIG TIME, and I have said so from the minute they started this crap. Bush's administration is preparing, on its own timetable, a massive document dump that will show beyond a shadow of a doubt that Iraq had WMDs and that it was a threat; and that it was completely tied to AQ.

What the Dems COULD be hitting Bush on, but aren't, is the timeline for getting Iraq back up and running safely. But that would require the Dems to clamor for a LARGER military and MORE troops, and effectively admit that the war was a good idea---which they won't do.

Ruah also has correctly pointed out that they could be DEMANDING that we make a GREATER effort to find the WMDs, instead of pretending they never existed. That is how out of touch they are.

4 posted on 07/20/2003 7:40:06 AM PDT by LS
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To: LS
I've been searching for their "strategy", such as it is, and have come to the conclusion that the democratic leadership is insane, or a republican plant or somesuch. I saw the midterm decimation coming, although none of the professional pundits did, and they get paid to do that kind of thing for a living. And they were all wrong, not just a little, but totally off base.

Somebody is running the party over a cliff.
5 posted on 07/20/2003 7:51:31 AM PDT by Freedom4US
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To: Freedom4US
"Somebody is running the party over a cliff."

Does the name Clinton come to mind? Riding in as the savior of the party. Just a thought.

6 posted on 07/20/2003 7:53:07 AM PDT by Bahbah
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To: Freedom4US
Well, I agree with you, and thought we actually came up short by not getting Thune in and Landrieu out. Those were two important losses.

One of two things is happening: either the Clintons (as Rush and some others claim) are indeed running the party, deliberately, into the ground so that they can "rescue it," or the party has simply gone so far left as to be a mirror opposite of the 1800s Federalists, who were so far out of touch with the public that they became extinct. This is more than a "McGovernite wing" of the Party, this is the MAINSTREAM of Dems who are so furious with Bush's success that they are blinded by anger. Rich in his column said: "Pinch most Democrats these days and they'll vomit vituperation about President Bush . . . ."

PRECISELY! They are consumed by hatred, and that does not attract votes, ever!

7 posted on 07/20/2003 8:22:46 AM PDT by LS
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To: veronica
Great to see a column quoting Eddie Cochrane. Although if anyone recalls, there is a line in "Summertime Blues" where he says "I'm gonna take my troubles to the United Nations." It didn't do him any good, either. And as Eddie's Congressman told him in the same song "I'd like to help you son, but you're too young to vote." Eddie Cochrane bump.
8 posted on 07/20/2003 8:29:14 AM PDT by speedy
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To: veronica
The Dimwits should be asking when did their very own Clintons know.
9 posted on 07/20/2003 8:31:30 AM PDT by freekitty
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To: Bahbah
Does the name Clinton come to mind? Riding in as the savior of the party. Just a thought.

Could be. Hillary is busy painting herself as a "moderate" compared to those radical dingbats in her party. I can see her riding in as the Great Uniter of her party, rallying the troops behind her and sailing on to victory. The scary thing is that there are enough kool-aid drinking dems that'll buy it.

10 posted on 07/20/2003 8:36:58 AM PDT by randog (Everything works great 'til the current flows.)
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To: randog; veronica
"The scary thing is that there are enough kool-aid drinking dems that'll buy it."

Exactly. Veronica, we need to keep our eye on the ball with this awful woman. We are not done with the Clintons yet.

11 posted on 07/20/2003 8:40:36 AM PDT by Bahbah
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To: Bahbah
The Clinton's may *think* they can save the democrap party from going over the cliff, but I think *they* are the reason the dims are on the edge to begin with.
12 posted on 07/20/2003 8:47:57 AM PDT by Ditter
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To: veronica
They are demanding details: What did the President know, and when did he know it?

Ax the Beast. She was the one who took to the Senate floor holding up some rag with the headline - BUSH KNEW!

13 posted on 07/20/2003 9:06:48 AM PDT by Libloather (Proud member of the Vast Right Wing Fatwa...)
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To: veronica
There is an easier explaination. The Democratic Presidential candidates are grubbing for money from the rich left wing ideologs that bank roll the Democratic Party.
14 posted on 07/20/2003 11:12:27 AM PDT by Dark Wing
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