John getting political for a few moments...

[johnpalmer]

This is, essentially, a collection of various political ramblings from a moderate who feels more and more liberal, the more he thinks about the Republican party's actions of the past decade+, mostly dealing with various and sudries regarding news about Iraq.

If you're interested...you can click here

Okay... I've seen it one time too many.

I don't know how many times I've seen this bullshit claim that, "if you disliked Bush's handling of the Iraq war, you want Saddam Hussein to still be in power".

How about this: How about if Bush had determined that Hussein was still in Baghdad, and had a nuclear bomb delivered (by missile or bomber, or whatever) in each location he could have been in, turning Baghdad into a radioactive wasteland.

If someone criticizes that, is *that* also wanting Saddam Hussein to be in power? Or does that mean that you feel that (in this fictional scenario) Bush did things completely wrong?

Right now, of course, the big news is that Saddam Hussein has been captured, and people were asking "what does this mean for Dean?" (the current frontrunner for the Democratic Presidential nomination, if you haven't been following political news), and this was the accusation Lieberman used. "If Dean had his way, Saddam Hussein would still be in power."

Lieberman also said that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the deaths of 460 US soldiers who've died in the conquest of Iraq. Damn that bastard! How *dare* he make his soldiers defend their home against an enemy invader, and not be meek, quiet sheep once the military has been defeated! Why, if *OUR* good country was taken over by an enemy, *WE*, good moral upright Americans that we all are, would probably commit suicide or demand to be imprisoned rather than fight back against a foreign invader!

Damn. Sorry. I tried to apply logic to political rhetoric... you can see what that does to one's brain.

Anyway.

There is another option. Bush could have decided that he would have done the necessary work to build an international consensus to go against Saddam Hussein.

We might be launching the attack right now, with broad international support, rather than after three months while screaming that it's been 12 years (despite the fact that the final resolution was doing exactly what it was supposed to do).

Or, he could have immediately ceded control of Iraq over to the UN. "There; I did what I said I would do: act when the UN wasn't willing."

Hell, he could have immediately made nice to everyone he offended and who offended him. After all, he got what he wanted; what does rhetoric matter now? "We respect our noble allies for disagreeing with our position, but what's done is done, and what's important now is helping the people of Iraq."

He could have done a thousand things differently, and without requiring any astounding level of foresight. Many other actions would also have resulted in Saddam Hussein no longer being in power. So, this whole "you either support Bush, or want Saddam Hussein in power" is completely meaningless and dishonest.

Let's not even touch on the "Only countries that played cheerleader will help rebuild Iraq"; of all the lies that he's told over this war that bug me, this one ranks in the top ten.

What, exactly, did Russia, France, and Germany (among others) do to stop the war?

Answer: Jack shit. The war happened, perhaps a few days later than Bush had planned it.

Yes... if they'd gone meekly along, Bush would probably have much greater backing and many more troops, and much greater trust from the people of Iraq. But let's not blame other countries for things that Bush had a huge amount of control over. He could have been conciliatory at any time, and things could have been different.

So, now he gets to spend - let me use the Republican rhetoric[1] for a moment - *OUR* money to reward people who sucked up to him over the war. And he's being awfully free with it, saying he doesn't want French, German, or Russian companies to bid, even if it would save some of *our money*, or make things better for the people of Iraq for the same price.

And, worst of all, he's got the spin doctors making it sound good, and no one has got the counter spin to put him in his place.

I'm starting to wonder if the entire head of the Democrats suffers from what I used to call "grad student syndrome", where it's assumed that everyone one is trying to get a message to will see things as easily as the speaker does. (e.g.: when a math grad student tries to teach a (really pretty easy) theorem in calculus, assuming it's *really* easy and *super* obvious, because the grad student now understands it so intuitively.)

Comments

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

You're right, of course. I was using shorthand, though, and being kind-of ironic. The Republicans like to label things they don't like as "liberal", and, I think they're also trying to move the goalposts, so that a person who used to be a "strict moderate" is now, at best, a 'left leaning moderate', if not "a screaming liberal".

Herm. I'm not sure if I'm explaining this all that well. Part of the trouble that I've been having with recent political debate, though, is that while there's a pretense that it's about ideology, it's becoming more and more about partisanship. Republicans don't want fiscal responsibility, because that's not what the top Republican wants. Only a depraved liberal would insist on a BALANCED BUDGET, of all things, when there are so many more important things to do.

Damn it all... if this doesn't get my idea across, it's proof that I was right to decide I was too tired to try to explain this in the first place.

[umbran.livejournal.com]

No worries - you've gotten your point across. :)

You're right that some folks are trying to redraw the lines, and that there's a great deal of partisan power-games cloaked as ideological debate these days. My point is merely that if such is the case, we should resist the tendency to use that same shorthand ourselves.