Politics: A new beginning

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by The Larry Davis Experience
Stepping away from the decision to go in for a moment, because clearly the battle lines have been drawn on that one, I'm curious whether you think it would have been an unrealistic alternative to involve the world community sooner after the end of "major combat".

At that time we went to the UN and got a resolution basically making the reconstruction our show. Then months later, once things started to go less smoothly, we went back for a new resolution that we hoped would somehow encourage other countries to help more. None have stepped forward, leaving the price tag on the shoulders of the American taxpayers to the tune of $100+ billion so far (including military costs).

After the experience of the first Iraq war, where through attention to our diplomatic relationships and some pointed arm-twisting from James Baker the US paid only $9b of the $61b price tag, are you really telling me that there was no realistic alternative to this administration's handling of Iraq? Have our former allies in NATO and the UN gotten so selfish over the intervening 10 years?

Or am I misreading you and this argument only about the decision to go in to Iraq? Even so, I would argue that the successful reconstruction of Iraq is part of "taking the fight to the terorrists" and I'm rather disappointed by our prosecution of that reconstruction.

(As I said yesterday, I don't have much problem with the ad, mainly because if people believe it they deserve Bush as their president)

I was focused on the former. With respect to the later, it would have been realistic only if they were willing to give up control to the likes of Russia and France, the very countries that were propping up SH. To me that was not a realistic alternative.
And it is not true that none have stepped forward. Some 35b was pledged a few months back (granted this is not enough, but it is also not unsubstantial).

Has the administration made misstakes? Absolutely. But that is inevitable in war. We are still only 8 months out and these things take time. What is important is that the administration has realized this (though not said so publicly) and has made adjustments as they have gone. This bullshit about not having a "plan" (current DNC talking point #3) is just that. You simply cannot anticipate each and every development ahead of time.

Like I've said on other subjects (e.g., effect of tax cuts) we have to give policies time before making a final judgment. The DEMs continue to jump the gun on most of their criticisms (the economy, the economy the economy). Unfortumately, most people have short memories so they don't have to pay the political costs.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Sexual Harassment Panda
As for the ad, as Tyrone points out, you can't miss the qualitative difference between calling Bush a lying, self-enriching, kid-hating drunk moron, and labeling those who do so traitors.

A disturbing pattern of late - you get to say whatever you want, but if we respond, even more temperately, (honestly, I looked, and can't find that word in anything Bush said), we are calling you "traitors", or we're "stifling free speech", or we're just somehow killing off dissent. Isn't it hard to bill enough hours while carrying that huge cross?

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by bilmore
Clinton cut military expenditures from the mid$350's to the mid-$250's, and that's in unadjusted dollars, meaning the impact was far greater. He stopped a lot of R&D completely. He cut manpower down to less than half of what we had in GWI, which took us way down past the multi-front capacity that we arguably should always maintain. Pay was slashed, careers were ended, and a lot of capable people were gone. He also cut way back on spending for the various intelligence agencies. With his various policies, he scrambled the humint sections. In short, he was hell on our military capabilities. Yeah, we went into Afghanistan and Iraq, but we had to pull up very old reserves to do it.

So, no, I'm not talking about further cuts that he wanted - what he actually did was bad enough.

I think that's largely true -- but its not particularly fair to pin all that on Clinton. This was a biprtisan effort with contributors from the Republican Congress throughout. Remember the 1992 elections -- "It's the economy, stupid?" and the desparate desire for a "peace dividend" with the fall of the Soviet Union? Remember back when we still wanted to balance the budget - and did?

Can you show me the records of the Republican leadership filibustering against the cuts in military spending?? No. You can't. Both sides did this. No one in power adequately understood the nature and magnitude of the threat we faced until after 9/11/01.

P.S. To all of you urging that Clinton could or should have done more in the mid to late 1990s -- can you recall what was happening domestically at the time, and envision whether Clinton actually had the political capital to launch a war on terror/al Qaeda?? (i.e. Whitewater, Paula Jones, Impeachment). The few steps Clinton tried to take were publicly derided as attempts to change the subject (i.e "Wag the Dog")-- including by irresponsible Congressional Republicans.

That is yet another way in which the pathological behavior of the far right-wing towards Clinton, and their success in crippling his administration, harmed our national security.

S_A_M

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by bilmore
A disturbing pattern of late - you get to say whatever you want, but if we respond, even more temperately, (honestly, I looked, and can't find that word in anything Bush said), we are calling you "traitors", or we're "stifling free speech", or we're just somehow killing off dissent. Isn't it hard to bill enough hours while carrying that huge cross?

A man who has professed his love for Ann Coulter should have not put "traitors" in quotation marks.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man

That is yet another way in which the pathological behavior of the far right-wing towards Clinton, and their success in crippling his administration, harmed our national security.

S_A_M

That is some quality spin. Seriously.

[The Larry Davis Experience]

Originally posted by bilmore
It really wasn't a binary solution set, was it? I doubt anyone would argue that we were simply better off keeping everyone else out, but there were costs that they attempted to impose as a condition of joining that we found to be unacceptable.

Of course it wasn't a binary solution set. I'm saying that the course they chose has been extremely costly and frankly I am pessimistic about its prospects (but I understand that reasonable minds can differ as to that forecast).

I was responding to the continued contention here that GWB's opponents criticize him without presenting a reasonable alternative course of action. You may agree with the admin that the conditions our prospective allies wished to impose were unacceptable, but I don't think that is the only reasonable answer here. More specifically, I think this administration has been shaky with its diplomacy at any time when its finger is not directly on a trigger and pointing a gun at somebody. How about some persuasion, instead of my-way-or-the-highway?

You may want to change the subject by saying it's not what those horrible Dem politicians do when they attack Bush, but I guess I have the same reaction to that as I do to the RNC ad. Our soundbite culture has pretty much eliminated any nuance from the crafting of political messages. If a candidate tried to say what I have typed in these posts to an audience of prospective voters he'd be drowned out by the snores. Which, of course, may not be so different from the response I am now getting from all the folks reading the PB right now, so I'll end this wordy response.

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by sgtclub
So it seems the line that has the DEMS' panties bunched is "some attack the president for attacking the terrorists" (paraphrased). This goes back to the 6 month argument of whether the war in Iraq is part of the war on terror. If you believe it is, then this line is roughly true (at least close enough for politics, and certainly closer than "BUSH LIED"). If you don't, well . . . your panties are twisted.

Billmore had it right on this one a few posts up.

Actually, I agree that the new RNC ad is within the pale for what now passes as politics, and should not be the subject of any real uproar -- and should be readily countered in ads by the at-least-equally-fair response that "No, Democrats are attacking Bush because he was so incompetent in attacking the terrorists, and had a completely inadequate plan for finishing the fights in Afghanistan and Iraq -- which continue to cost us American lives and boatloads of cash."

However, Bilmore did not "have it right' above, because no Dem ad to my knowledge has ever said ANY of those things (except perhaps to imply that Cheney is a thief). Bilmore has apparently been so scarred by his Minnesota experiences, post-2000, that he has jumpd down into the trenches with Ton Delay.

S_A_M

[The Larry Davis Experience]

Originally posted by sgtclub
I was focused on the former. With respect to the later, it would have been realistic only if they were willing to give up control to the likes of Russia and France, the very countries that were propping up SH. To me that was not a realistic alternative.
And it is not true that none have stepped forward. Some 35b was pledged a few months back (granted this is not enough, but it is also not unsubstantial).

Has the administration made misstakes? Absolutely. But that is inevitable in war. We are still only 8 months out and these things take time. What is important is that the administration has realized this (though not said so publicly) and has made adjustments as they have gone. This bullshit about not having a "plan" (current DNC talking point #3) is just that. You simply cannot anticipate each and every development ahead of time.

Like I've said on other subjects (e.g., effect of tax cuts) we have to give policies time before making a final judgment. The DEMs continue to jump the gun on most of their criticisms (the economy, the economy the economy). Unfortumately, most people have short memories so they don't have to pay the political costs.

I guess our disagreement comes from our analysis of just how powerful the French and Russians would be at the postwar bargaining table. I mean, we did get the resolution from the UN giving us free hand in Iraq. It's not like they used their security council veto to stop that. But I can see your viewpoint.

btw, I'm not interested in a google-off, but my recollection was that far less was actually pledged in terms of real dollars (for example, Kuwait said it would withdraw claims of $1b+ reparations from Iraq, money they probably weren't going to get anyway). Either way, it's a far cry from a situation where we paid less than 20% of the costs of Iraq War I.

For what it's worth, I think we had a great military plan and a subpar postwar plan. It seems pretty clear to me that our plan assumed the best-case scenario of popular support from the people (why else disband the military and put a lot of gun-toting Iraqis out of work). If you think that the uncertainty of future events makes any evaluation of a plan impossible, then I wish you well in your continued adherence to the GOP line.

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by sgtclub
And it is not true that none have stepped forward. Some 35b was pledged a few months back (granted this is not enough, but it is also not unsubstantial).

Club, $20B of the 35B is U.S. money. so, the others stepped up with $13B. Not at all what we were hoping for.

Originally posted by sgtclub
The DEMs continue to jump the gun on most of their criticisms (the economy, the economy the economy). Unfortumately, most people have short memories so they don't have to pay the political costs.

Your last sentence may be the epitaph for our political system.


edited to fix tags -- T.S.

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by sgtclub
That is some quality spin. Seriously.

Thanks.

But you know, you can't prove that he would not have done it he could have done it.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Sexual Harassment Panda
Has anyone else seen this ad of which Hank speaks?

Bitch please! You've not seen an ad taking a House Republican proposal to eliminate the Dept. Of Education, and equating it to being against the concept of education?

If it wasn't shown last Presidential election it's only because the ad was so effective as to have taken the issue out of the dialouge. Certainly it played in the '96 election.

I don't see a real difference in sleaze between calling one side soft on terrorism, and calling the other kid haters. Am I missing something?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by The Larry Davis Experience
IFor what it's worth, I think we had a great military plan and a subpar postwar plan. It seems pretty clear to me that our plan assumed the best-case scenario of popular support from the people (why else disband the military and put a lot of gun-toting Iraqis out of work). If you think that the uncertainty of future events makes any evaluation of a plan impossible, then I wish you well in your continued adherence to the GOP line.

bitch please! if you are a Democrat who felt going into Iraq was correct*, then the "lack of a plan" is a red herring. None of them have a plan**, just disagreement with what's going on. If this purposeless bitching actually changes what happens in Iraq in a negative fashion***, then the Dems are closer to doing real harm, commercials aside.

*Larry, I don't think you were here pre-war, and I assume you would be against it, but most of the Presidential candidates did vote for a war.
**I haven't watched the debates but aside from Kerry reminding us he was sitting on a destroyer in the ocean during Vietnam, have any offered any alternate plan?
*** I really hope Bush doesn't knuckle under to this and compromise to silence this crap.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by The Larry Davis Experience
Our soundbite culture has pretty much eliminated any nuance from the crafting of political messages. If a candidate tried to say what I have typed in these posts to an audience of prospective voters he'd be drowned out by the snores.

Agree. I think that we've developed the sports mentality of politics in this country. You somehow drift into having a home team, you stick with that team no matter what, and the defense of the team usually consists of no more than "yeah, well youse guyz suck!" Applies equally to all both (all?) sides, and serves us all equally well.

It would be nice if more people would realize that the stakes are higher, and a bit more personally impacting.

[Say_hello_for_me]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski

I don't see a real difference in sleaze between calling one side soft on terrorism, and calling the other kid haters. Am I missing something?

Yes you are Mister. When you suggest "soft on terrorism", they hear "traitors". OMG, those baby-haters just called me a traitor, call my lawyer!

Or Am I missing something with Hank?

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Bitch please! You've not seen an ad taking a House Republican proposal to eliminate the Dept. Of Education, and equating it to being against the concept of education?

Count this Democrat among those who is unclear on the mission and effectiveness of the ED. Other than Head Start and administering various financial aid programs, why is the federal government in this business? Why is it a cabinet-level position? What is the constitutional basis for having a federal education policy?

Looking at the org chart, it seems there is a well-developed internal bureaucratic structure, so at least there's something to show for.



I think the ED exists as a political football, so that Bushes can run on extra-constitutional platforms, like being the "Education President," and then get lots of good photo ops. You might as well run as the "Good Nutrition President."