Fight or Flight?

I really didn’t want to talk about Iraq since there are several thousand blogs talking about that topic, but there’s been a lot of partisan sniping flying around with people being called unpatriotic, chicken hawks, warmongers, Nazis, etc., and those are the polite words. I rose above this name calling when I was about 9 and it’s dispiriting to the troops with their lives on the line to hear this. When debate is framed around schoolyard insults, it’s no wonder people tune into Entertainment Tonight for some erudite discussions.

It’s a shame because buried beneath the finger pointing is a good general debate about what should happen next. I’ve previously stated here that I strongly supported the war in Iraq and still do because our goals there are so important to the Middle East and spreading democracy is the best way to end terrorism. But I also understand why so many people in and out of Congress think it’s time to bring the troops home, because Iraq has degenerated into a completely avoidable quagmire that could have been prevented with a Marshall-type plan. That nobody in the administration anticipated the anarchy that would arise if Iraq fell symbolizes the incompetence of so many at the highest levels of our government. The current debate demonstrates democracy in action – talk that would get many of the war’s dissenters beaten or murdered under Saddam Hussein and many Arab governments.

The other irony about our discussion is that every side is almost correct in their assertions. Anti-war demonstrators are correct in stating our presence is helping to fuel the insurgency, that prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib have undermined the moral mission of ousting a dictator and the reasons for going to war look at best deceptive and at worst dishonest. Pro-war demonstrators are correct in stating U.S. troops are all that is keeping Iraq from becoming a full-blown civil war of Yugoslavian proportions, Iraq has undergone two successful elections and now has a civilian government and measuring success should be done not by how quickly we get out, but by how quickly we can help build a functional Iraq.

It’s tempting to throw in the towel when terrorists murder innocent Iraqis and U.S. troops alike because everyone to Bush and Rumsfeld on down bungled the whole post-war rebuilding process so badly. But as the sign in the stores say, “You Break It, You Bought It.” We broke Iraq and it is now our job to fix it. That is why, with all due sympathy and respect to the get-out-now-and- bring-them-home crowd, it is important to stay until the job is done and Iraq can defend itself. This thought has been correctly discussed by the more even-tempered and open-minded Republicans, including John McCain and Condoleeza Rice, and by most of the generals and soldiers who are actually in Iraq and know best.

As a PR flack, I think it’s unconscionable that the President and the Pentagon are not giving more information on where things are going well in Iraq and where they are not going well. They’re spending too much time on partisan name-calling and labeling anyone who disagrees with them unpatriotic and cowardly. The President is not losing his popularity battle in Iraq – he is losing it here at home because he has not sold Iraq to the American people, let alone to foreign nations. Where are the war heroes we can cheer on? Where are the visits to injured soldiers, which Rep. Murtha does every week? Why do we need to seek out obscure blogs and third-party web sites to find any trace of progress?

I’ll post some further ideas on that last paragraph soon.


An Opposing View from a Columnist I Greatly Respect

What's Wrong with the Republicans

These should be salad days for the Republicans. They control all three branches of the government, have 28 state governors and a majority of the state legislatures. They have gerrymandered Congressional districts to make their incumbents almost invulnerable, and the bulk of the social issues they espoused in the last elections, particularly opposition to gay marriage, passed with wide margins.

Why then, does this increasingly feel like a party under siege?

Decades need to pass before we can properly assess how presidents and their parties have changed our country. But if the 2004 elections represented the height of Republican power, it also signals a finale. There are too many cracks in the foundation, and Bush’s second term is succumbing to what many called “second-term-itis,” marked by the scandals and infighting that have always plagued second-term presidents.

A fish rots from the head, and the president is partly to blame for not keeping his house in order. Originally elected on a platform of compassionate conservatism, Bush’s tenure has been marked by the largest increase in government spending and fiscal unrestraint this side of The Great Society. Government is bigger than ever. Republicans are wasting more money than Paris Hilton at Neiman Marcus, with bills so laden with special interest perks and pork you can smell the methane here in Boston. The massive governmental growth and unchecked spending, combined with tax cuts and a war in Iraq costing millions each day, has brought our budget deficit to new heights. We are also billions of dollars in debt, mainly to China, who will one day stop buying our bonds and move on to a stronger currency if things don’t stop. The GOP can no longer realistically position itself as the party of fiscal restraint and smaller government. The current administration has completely squashed that notion.

Bush would never have been elected and re-elected without massive support from the evangelical community, and he certainly owes them his support. What is alarming is how they appear to be hijacking the center of the party and not only pushing it farther to the right, but dancing on the edge of the church/state abyss. There have been alarming messages of intolerance and bigotry sent by the Republicans on homosexuals and ignorance disseminated by the ridiculous “intelligent design” theory vs. evolution. American schools do a bad enough job teaching biology and science as is. I find it very difficult to believe that someone as educated and erudite as President Bush truly believes that intelligent design (remember when it was fobbed off as creationism?) should trump evolution as a school standard. There is also no way a medical doctor like Bill Frist could have diagnosed Terry Schiavo and said the evangelicals’ medical assessment was correct (he was wrong). Both are obviously pandering to this wing of the party.

The recent fiasco over Harriet Miers illustrates how GOP infighting is drawing to a head. Evangelicals, dead-set on overturning the abortion issue, attacked Miers for not being conservative enough. Miers was obviously not the most qualified or brightest candidate for the job, but when religious groups have more sway over a nominee than the Senate, it’s a good sign that your party is too beholden to outside influence.

With the president’s low popularity, you can see how the GOP is beginning to splinter. Fiscal conservatives are now demanding action on spending. Moderates are spending more time with Democrats. Republican Congressmen and Senators up for re-election next year are tracking the polls and are strategically shifting their policies away from an increasingly unpopular war and president.

So what will happen to the Republicans in 2006 and 2008? Of course, it’s too early to tell. But the party’s leadership is losing too much Independent voter support on wedge issues like abortion, stem cell research and gay marriage by kowtowing to the religious right wing of the party, which is likely a minority of the overall party but overabundant in the party’s leadership.

But don’t forget what I mentioned first – the Republicans are in full control, and you don’t get that way by making mistakes. Republican congressmen and women are ensconced by redistricting, and won’t lose many seats (if any). And the Party is smart enough to sense that if the President is poison and seen as beholden to a radical fringe, the party can easily nominate a centrist candidate like John McCain and Rudy Guiliani who will appeal to those Independents and swing voters like me who decide elections. Frankly, I think the Party is now so far to the right that it has no choice but to steer back toward the middle to get votes it needs. The whole idea is so crazy it just might work.

Come back in the next week or two when I tear the Democrats a new one!