The neo-McGovernites strike back
This morning's Real Clear Politics features several whines by admirers of neo-McGovernite Ned Lamont that the portrayal of his victory over Sen. Joe Lieberman in Tuesday's Connecticut Democratic primary as a triumph for extremism are unfair.
I choose the word "whine" quite deliberately. Their arguments are absurd, and don't even touch the compelling logic of the characterization of Ned Lamont as an irresponsible extremist (even if there is one issue in which he is not as far left as some are). And yes, it is the Democrats- the party which for six years has responded to the Bush administration, not with coherent arguments, but mainly with personal attacks and name-calling- whose petty partisanship is responsible for the toxic state of American politics today. Calling a thing what it is is not mean. Calling George Bush a diabolically clever moron is not only abusive, but transparently silly. Yet that is what the Democrats have done for six years, and it is no small part of the reason why they keep losing elections to him.
It is true that "opposition to the Iraq war" does not make one an extremist. But "opposition to the Iraq war" takes in a great deal of territory. Contrary to one of the many misrepresentations of Joe Lieberman's record through which Ned Lamont managed to win on Tuesday, Sen. Lieberman has been anything but a cheerleader for the administration on Iraq. He has offered quite pointed criticism of our policy there, as have I. We have not had enough troops. We have not listened to our ablest military leaders, preferring the policies of armchair generals like Donald Rumsfeld. The war has been misfought and mismanaged ever since the climax of the brilliant and victorious conventional phase. It has become bogged down in an insurrection by various competing groups of paramilitary thugs in a single region of a country the size of California- and instead of crushing the insurrection, as Colin Powell advised, through massive force, the Bush administration has tried to win the war on the cheap. It hasn't worked, and Joe Lieberman has not been silent about the administration's folly in that regard.
But let's let the candidates define their own positions, shall we? Lamont first:
Except that this is a war. Humanitarian aid does not help when there are bandits of fifteen different stripes running around Baghdad making life unsafe for anything that breathes. Such situations can only be handled in one way: by killing the bandits.
Sure, at the end of the day only Iraqis can solve this. The heart of Lamont's position is precisely his unwillingness to buy the Iraqis the time to train military and security forces with which to do so. Political and humanitarian aid are meaningless as long as the thugs run loose, and the democratically elected Iraqi government isn't given precisely the military support it needs to establish a strong enough political and institutional base with which to carry on.
Now shall we take a look at Lieberman's position?
The difference is that Lieberman knows better than to rely on the MSM for his information on what is going on in Iraq. Not everything about the war is a disaster- and contrary to the insistence of the MSM (and Lamont) to suggest otherwise, it is simply not the case that we are making no progress. Lieberman is even willing to talk, in general terms, about a timetable. Some warmonger!
But Lamont's position boils down to a willingness to allow Iraq to plunge into a bloodbath that would make Kosovo look mild by comparison, if only it means that American troops won't be there. It boils down to a willingness to abandon the responsibility we assumed- whether one agrees with the decision to invade or not- when we invaded.
My very first post on this blog after I moved it to Blogger was on Nancy Pelosi's statement that "if you break it, you own it." I didn't know it at the time, but that was a quotation from Colin Powell, warning of the solemn responsibility the United States would assume in toppling Saddam Hussein.
Whether one agrees that we did well to assume that responsibility, we did- and Ned Lamont's position is not simply that he's "against the war in Iraq" (whatever that means). It's that he's in favor of abdicating our responsibility, of abandoning those who have staked their lives on our support, and allowing the people of Iraq to suffer a nightmare which likely would have few parallels in modern history. More than that- especially in combination with Vietnam- it would destroy any credibility the projection of American power might have in the world for the foreseeable future, and strengthen the conviction in the mind of every thug in the world that Americans simply lack the stomach to follow through on their committments. What potential ally could trust us? And who could blame them?
No, despite the attempts of left-wing columnists to suggest otherwise, the consequences of Lamont's positions make him irresponsible and dangerous. And even if the entire country agreed with his views, they would not be a tad less irresponsible, a tad less dangerous- or a sliver less extreme. That is, if one does what Lamont's journalistic apologists seem unable to do, and measure what is or is not extreme not on the basis of the latest polls, but on the basis of the consequences.
No amount of special pleading will make Ned Lamont's victory on Tuesday any the less a victory of extremism over reason.
I choose the word "whine" quite deliberately. Their arguments are absurd, and don't even touch the compelling logic of the characterization of Ned Lamont as an irresponsible extremist (even if there is one issue in which he is not as far left as some are). And yes, it is the Democrats- the party which for six years has responded to the Bush administration, not with coherent arguments, but mainly with personal attacks and name-calling- whose petty partisanship is responsible for the toxic state of American politics today. Calling a thing what it is is not mean. Calling George Bush a diabolically clever moron is not only abusive, but transparently silly. Yet that is what the Democrats have done for six years, and it is no small part of the reason why they keep losing elections to him.
It is true that "opposition to the Iraq war" does not make one an extremist. But "opposition to the Iraq war" takes in a great deal of territory. Contrary to one of the many misrepresentations of Joe Lieberman's record through which Ned Lamont managed to win on Tuesday, Sen. Lieberman has been anything but a cheerleader for the administration on Iraq. He has offered quite pointed criticism of our policy there, as have I. We have not had enough troops. We have not listened to our ablest military leaders, preferring the policies of armchair generals like Donald Rumsfeld. The war has been misfought and mismanaged ever since the climax of the brilliant and victorious conventional phase. It has become bogged down in an insurrection by various competing groups of paramilitary thugs in a single region of a country the size of California- and instead of crushing the insurrection, as Colin Powell advised, through massive force, the Bush administration has tried to win the war on the cheap. It hasn't worked, and Joe Lieberman has not been silent about the administration's folly in that regard.
But let's let the candidates define their own positions, shall we? Lamont first:
I think our very visible frontline military presence is making the situation worse. I think that our best hope for success, Tom, our best hope for success is to take the very American military face off of this occupation and start bringing our troops out of harm’s way and start bringing our troops home. We'll there be for reconstruction. We'll be there for humanitarian assistance. We’ll be there for political support. But at the end of the day, only the Iraqis can solve this. They can solve it politically, and only they can solve it militarily.
Except that this is a war. Humanitarian aid does not help when there are bandits of fifteen different stripes running around Baghdad making life unsafe for anything that breathes. Such situations can only be handled in one way: by killing the bandits.
Sure, at the end of the day only Iraqis can solve this. The heart of Lamont's position is precisely his unwillingness to buy the Iraqis the time to train military and security forces with which to do so. Political and humanitarian aid are meaningless as long as the thugs run loose, and the democratically elected Iraqi government isn't given precisely the military support it needs to establish a strong enough political and institutional base with which to carry on.
Now shall we take a look at Lieberman's position?
Well, Tom and Joanne, Ned has got me confused again. But I'll tell you one thing he’s wrong about. The situation in Iraq is a lot better, different than it was a year ago. The Iraqis held three elections. They formed a unity government. They are on the way to building a free and independent Iraq. Their military -- two-thirds of their military is now ready, on their own, to lead the fight with some logistical backing from the U.S. or stand up on their own totally. That's progress. And the question is, are we going to abandon them while they are making that progress?
Let me repeat. I'm not for an open-ended commitment to Iraq. The sooner we're out of there, the better it will be for the Iraqis and for us. But if we leave too soon, we will create disaster there -- a terrorist state, civil war, regional instability -- and the terrorists will be emboldened to strike us again.
So I am confident that the situation is improving enough on the ground that by the end of this year, we will begin to draw down significant numbers of American troops, and by the end of the next year, more than half of the troops who are there now will be home, but not because we set a deadline. That would make it harder.
The difference is that Lieberman knows better than to rely on the MSM for his information on what is going on in Iraq. Not everything about the war is a disaster- and contrary to the insistence of the MSM (and Lamont) to suggest otherwise, it is simply not the case that we are making no progress. Lieberman is even willing to talk, in general terms, about a timetable. Some warmonger!
But Lamont's position boils down to a willingness to allow Iraq to plunge into a bloodbath that would make Kosovo look mild by comparison, if only it means that American troops won't be there. It boils down to a willingness to abandon the responsibility we assumed- whether one agrees with the decision to invade or not- when we invaded.
My very first post on this blog after I moved it to Blogger was on Nancy Pelosi's statement that "if you break it, you own it." I didn't know it at the time, but that was a quotation from Colin Powell, warning of the solemn responsibility the United States would assume in toppling Saddam Hussein.
Whether one agrees that we did well to assume that responsibility, we did- and Ned Lamont's position is not simply that he's "against the war in Iraq" (whatever that means). It's that he's in favor of abdicating our responsibility, of abandoning those who have staked their lives on our support, and allowing the people of Iraq to suffer a nightmare which likely would have few parallels in modern history. More than that- especially in combination with Vietnam- it would destroy any credibility the projection of American power might have in the world for the foreseeable future, and strengthen the conviction in the mind of every thug in the world that Americans simply lack the stomach to follow through on their committments. What potential ally could trust us? And who could blame them?
No, despite the attempts of left-wing columnists to suggest otherwise, the consequences of Lamont's positions make him irresponsible and dangerous. And even if the entire country agreed with his views, they would not be a tad less irresponsible, a tad less dangerous- or a sliver less extreme. That is, if one does what Lamont's journalistic apologists seem unable to do, and measure what is or is not extreme not on the basis of the latest polls, but on the basis of the consequences.
No amount of special pleading will make Ned Lamont's victory on Tuesday any the less a victory of extremism over reason.
Comments