Fear Itself

Two great (and vaguely linked) posts over at Jeff Jarvis’ Buzz Machine – one of my daily reads. Check out his post on ‘Change and Fear: What They Got Wrong About America‘:

We wanted to hear a candidate start by saying he liked America, he loved America — especially at a time when it is under attack from Islamic nut jobs and Euro bozos and even Mexican soccer hooligans — and then propose ways to make it better.

You betcha. That’s a drum I’ve beaten for a long time and will gladly join Jeff in beating every chance I get.As an example of what Jeff’s talking about, scroll down his site and check out his dissection of Gore’s speech on terrorism in New York.

“Beginning with former Vice President Al Gore, who delivered the keynote address, speakers asserted again and again that the American government is preoccupied with instilling fear,” Rothstein writes.

But the dominant idea was that, as the conference’s thematic statement put it, fear was being “encouraged by our government and exacerbated by our media.” It was compared with the irrational fear of Communism and the perversions of McCarthyism. It was described as part of a counter-constitutional coup by a radical right.

Of course, I find that utterly offensive. I know personally how deep and real the fear is. I felt the searing heat of a jet exploding on my face; I breathed the dust of their destruction into my lungs; I saw the lives lost with my eyes. I do still live in fear, a very real fear. To dismiss that fear as an irrational variant of McCarthyism is to dismiss reality of the thousands of lives lost in that very real attack and to portray as harmless ideologues the terrorists who waged it; it uses the attacks against us to wage a self-serving political attack within. I am most disturbed that Gore — for whom I voted — is leading this attack.

That’s the heart of the anti-Bush campaign this fall; that Bush and his Administration are overhyping 9/11 and that terrorism really isn’t a significant problem; that the approach to fighting the Islamist terror movement is the one that is working so well in fighting drugs (let’s not forget that ‘didn’t inhale’ Clinton was every bit as much a drug warrior and civil liberties violator as Bush I, Reagan, and the other moralist Republicans). Pardon me while I giggle softly.

12 thoughts on “Fear Itself”

  1. No, thank goodness. But he’s the most prominent backer of Dean – and expressing a theme the Dean campaign used repeatedly. If he’s not a candidate himself, neither is he unaffiliated.

    Personally, I think A.L. missed the #1 excerpt in those articles:

    “There was a reluctance to use the concept of an enemy to refer to anything but domestic political opponents. “

    And that seems broadly true of the Democrats generally, not to mention most of the lib-left crowd.

  2. Well, the good news is that the Democratic party has rejected Dean, and Gore has proven that his endorsement is of little value.

    I repeat: can anyone take me through a step-by step argument as to why they think John Kerry would be a disaster for the war against Islamic Fundamentalist Terroists. So far, the best thing anyone has been able to come up with is that Kerry thinks that catching terrorists is primarily a law enforcement problem, which is, um, true. The real problem with the pre-9/11 approach was that the Pentagon was not involved, because they didn’t think it was “their brief.” Now they are deeply involved. Is Kerry advoacting that Special Ops and the DIA stop being involved? No, he isn’t. So what is the real problem? He doesn’t want to invade any other countries? Neither does Bush, and he’s on the record as saying so.

  3. Praktike,

    As long as any Democratic Presidential candidate is talking in terms of an internationally approved war via the UN and France like Kerry is, the Democrats are going to lose the general election and deserve too.

    Since no Democratic candidate for the Presidency can win the Democratic primaries with the current Democratic rank and file being only slightly to the left of Bush like Lieberman was, let alone being to the right of Bush on the war like they need to be. Democrats are going to be locked out of executive power.

    Until there is a general election Democratic Presidential candidate talking in terms of how he will more effectively hunt down and kill America’s foreign terrorist enemies, and how he will hire Richard Perle as his Defense Secretary, Democrats won’t be trusted with the powers of the Presidential office.

  4. Hi.

    “Not a step-by-step argument. What is the mechanism?”

    In my opinion, distractibility, short-termism, and a total absence of sincere drive to win this war, resulting in collapse of the tempo of the war, a hand-over of the initiative, and a choking insincerity that would make it difficult to get back to work even if the Americans realized in time they had to do that.

    Things come up. Who knew last year that court-ordered gay marriage would be an issue now? There’s always something new. Next year the great issue could be genetically modified puppies: how cute! Or is this tampering with nature? To the media, the new stuff is interesting, and what didn’t come to public eye much this year is old hat.

    If you don’t have strong priorities, the natural thing for a politician to do is follow the media butterfly from one flower to another, avoid any commitment that will sting in the short term (regardless of long term needs), and commit steady attention (in quiet) only to gratifying the big money supporters you’ll need to win a second term.

    Moreover, the prospective president represents the perspective of the people who voted him in. Democrat voters don’t care about the war.

    Under George W. Bush, there is steady pressure from the top down, for all allies and for American government agencies to take winning the war on terrorism seriously. Under John F. Kerry, or any Democrat, there would be no such pressure, rather everyone would be urged to focus on the story of the week. Personnel urging the American president to fight a war he didn’t believe in could be invited to pursue new career opportunities. Problems would be taken to the UN to be tied up in delay and politically neutralized. Allies would register that the Americans aren’t serious any more. So would enemies.

    As long as they were quiet, not a short-term public problem, terrorists could rebuild with knowledge gained by trial and error in this war. Of course they wouldn’t keep entirely quiet – they can’t because they’re fanatics. But we would be back to the Clinton era, where you read something really menacing, the American bluff is being called in a deadly way, and the answer is just in terms of short term publicity: “We will not forgive, we will not forget. America is strong.” Blah-de-blah-blah. Followed by nothing, or rather by the next story of the week.

    Is loss of tempo in the war effort really enough of a mechanism for the recovery of the enemy and for our destruction? Yes. Napoleon once said: “Ask me for anything but time.” And he wasn’t racing a calendar against jihadis trying to get unconventional weapons and the right setup to use them. (What I expect is a radiological weapon first, and eventually nukes to follow, if the jihad isn’t stopped dead.)

    It is really, really dangerous to shoot a man-eater and not finish it off. Going into the jungle to pursue it, which is what George W. Bush looks willing to continue doing, is the high risk play – in the short term. For the hunter to stay in his home and do nothing, while talking big to the villagers, is the safe play, in the short term.

    Assuming you are one of the villagers in this picture, which hunter do you want? The one that will go into the jungle to kill the wounded man-eater, and may ask you/your country to help? That’s scary. Or the one that will make no demands of you because he will hang around listening to every flatterer, time-waster and chronic complainer instead of doing what has to be done, while there may still be enough time? To me, that’s a lot scarier.

    Personally, I’m hoping that the Americans will pick the serious guy, even if he asks more of us, and I hope the Americans don’t have a result that defines fighting the war on terror as electorally useless if not ballot-box poison.

  5. David – excellently put!

    The only Democrat who “got it” was Leiberman. You described very well what “got it” looks like.

    What disturbs me most about Kerry is his cluelessless about who our allies are and aren’t – that “let’s ask Europe for permission” thing. And just in case you thought Kerry might be redeemable: he just hired James “Psst – wanna see pictures of my wife the CIA agent?” Wilson to work on his campaign. That says it all.

  6. Thank you, David Blue.

    I would add that a few likely problems with a Kerry presidency:

    1. Kerry considers the terrorism threat exaggerated.

    As a result, it would likely take another 9/11 for him to aggressively fight terrorism. Until then, it would be charades with subpoenas and the UN.

    2. Kerry either doesn’t understand or disagrees with the idea of “draining the swamp”.

    As a result, he would likely ignore the problem with islamic extremism, let it fester and build as its adherents tell each other that America is a paper tiger which won’t fight back.

    3. Kerry has, throughout his career in the senate, displayed very poor judgment. Examples abound — voting for the nuclear freeze, against missile defense, to cut defense spending, intelligence spending, against various vital weapon programs, against the Gulf War, and against funding the Iraq reconstruction.

    I see no reason to believe that his judgment skills will improve as soon as he is elected president.

    4. Kerry has always been an opportunist. He is a man without conviction, principles or moral compass. Whenever it’s expedient, he will run away from past votes and contradict past statements.

    This is a major character defect in a long-term war.

  7. Thanks for the kind words, Fredrik Nyman and Yehudit.

    Yehudit, your link was right to the point. This is what “not getting it” looks like:

    “Mr. Kerry’s press secretary defended the inclusion of Mr. Wilson in the campaign.
    “I think his support speaks volumes about this administration’s blustering foreign policy as well as about the breach of trust they’ve had with the American people,” David Wade said.”

    I think it speaks volumes about who John F. Kerry would hire as President, and who would have no chance to be hired, or to keep their jobs. That’s a “mechanism”, of the sort I think praktike was asking for.

    Fredrik, your points make sense. Fortunately I think George W. Bush is going to beat John F. Kerry. 🙂

  8. Thanks, David Blue. That is a much more credible response than simply saying “Kerry would let the UN take over our security!” or “Kerry thinks terrorism is a law enforcement problem!”

    I’ll have to think about that.

  9. Reading Drezner, I am reminded of a sixth good reason to fear a Kerry presidency:

    The Democrats national security weakness permeates their think tanks as well.

    See also Jim Geraghty about Dean’s advisers.

    Since Kerry is the DLC candidate, we’ll probably see a lot of Clinton and Carter folks advise him. Anthony Lake is writing op-eds (with Daalder!), and both Madeleine Albright and Zbigniew Brzezinski are out there with Al Gore slandering the Bush administration as often as they can.

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