When Howard Dean's supporters were declaring that they wanted to "take our country back" in 2003 and 2004, they weren't talking about repealing the Bush tax cuts. They were talking about withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq and taking a more conciliatory and respectful stance to the leaders of Old Europe and revolutionary Iran.
Similarly, Obama's refusal in 2007 and 2008 to admit that there was even a smidgen of success to George W. Bush's surge strategy in Iraq -- even today he will only hint that the surge worked -- cannot be chalked up to an intellectual incapacity to assimilate the facts.
It can only be explained as an unwillingness to rile the base of the Democratic Party whose concerns, as we know from Bob Woodward's account of the president's conduct of deliberations over what to do in Afghanistan, are never far from his mind.
Nevertheless, he has left these Democrats disappointed.
This seems right to me. Which brings us to an inconvenient notion from Mickey Kaus:
But you have to wonder if a GOP leader like potential House Speaker John Boehner even wants to win big in November. It's not just that Boehner needs to temper public predictions of triumph, lest a small victory be played by the media as a defeat. It's that a small victory might, for at least two reasons, actually be the best outcome for him. 1) A sizable GOP House majority would raise expectations that Boehner actually accomplish something--maybe even restraining the size of government. That's very difficult to do even when you control all three branches, and isn't necessarily popular when you do it. Tactically, with a big House majority, Boehner would feel pressure to pull the sort of stunt--a government shutdown to repeal Obama's health plan?--that got Newt Gingrich into trouble; 2) A large GOP wave would sweep into Congress fringe, outsider Tea Partyish elements who would be hard to manage and might rebel against the chummy relations between the party's leaders and lobbyists. You could even see obstreperous TPs making trouble for the Republicans' corporate backers.
This is true, too, I think. It's worth remembering that Republicans, especially establishment Republicans, aren't necessarily conservatives. And it's also worth remembering that the best outcome for John Boehner isn't necessarily the best outcome for you.
I believe that the Democrats richly deserve ouster and that many will get what they deserve on November 2. The thing that conservatives need to remember is this: once you elect replacements, the real job is keeping the replacements on task.
5 comments:
Personally, I hope Boehner is losing as much sleep over the Tea Party as Nancy Pelosi is. Maybe even more.
Mark,
Barone, and by extension, you, are taking a very complicated question: Did the surge "work"? and trying to make it binary. It isn't. President Bush repeatedly said that the objective of the surge was to decrease violence in order to carve out space for political solutions. If, in fact, that was its purpose, you could honestly say that the surge was a tactical and military success but a pretty astounding failure on the civilian political side, which was purportedly its main objective. I am, of course, basing this on what I always thought were rhetorical flourishes used by the Bush administration to get Congressional buy in. So it may have nothing to do with actual strategic thinking at the time. But, if words have meaning, most objective observers would have to admit that the stated objective of the surge was never met.
From the other side of the coin. I concede that Iraq in 2006 was in a death spiral of ethno-sectarian violence. And now, the country is relatively coherent, though it still has MAJOR political issues to work out, and that has been at an impasse for months/years. So if you posit that the point of the surge was to stem spiral of ethno-sectarian violence, then it has been relatively successful.
But if you think adding 25,000 more troops succeeded in solving many of Iraq's problems, especially long term ones, then I am afraid you are very wrong. Throwing 25k more bodies more at the issue didn't make Iraq's problems go away. Thankfully, it helped reduce the number of casualties of Coalition forces. And in that respect, it was certainly a success. But again, not the stated objective. Additionally, it is fair to ask what price we paid in blood and treasure and opportunity costs in Afghanistan, in order to supply the Surge in Iraq. In that context, I don't think you can say the surge "succeeded" at all. In fact, it may have been a net negative. Any way you look at this, there isn't an easy yes or no answer. Pretending there is for political gain is BS.
Regards,
Rich
Rich,
I think you're hanging a lot of analysis on a tangential point, at least where this post is concerned. What Barone was talking about is a simple political observation: why are some parts of the coalition that elected Obama in 2008 now hors de combat? And the reason, in Barone's view, is that Obama disappointed a large portion of that coalition with his conduct of the war.
The rest of your observations and concerns are certainly worth discussing, but it's ultimately tangential to the point of this post.
Best,
Mark
When I saw the headline, I thought this was about the Moss trade. The expectations of the NFL's most bipolar fanbase definitely made a huge swing today.
As for the actual post, I tend to agree with Night Writer.
Do you know why the Vikings are purple?
You'd be purple if you were choking for 30 years.
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