Just because I can’t help myself, some more reading on the growing “concern troll” movement in the Democratic Party.
From Matt Bai, in the New York Times:
In the summer of 2005, Mark Warner, then Virginia’s governor and a likely candidate for president, was the honored guest at a meeting of liberal donors just north of San Francisco – the same kind of crowd to whom Barack Obama was talking last week when he made his comments about bitterness, guns and religion. On that night, Mr. Warner proudly rose to make his case for why his success in Virginia could translate into Democratic success in other rural states, and to explain how he had improved schools and local economies in the state’s forgotten mining towns. But to his frustration, the donors were far more concerned about his stands on social issues – why he had capitulated to rural voters by embracing gun rights and parental notifications for abortions. At the end of the evening, as one of the donors pushed him further on abortion, Mr. Warner finally lost his cool. “This is why America hates Democrats,” he blurted before he drove away.
From George Packer, in the New Yorker:
The real problem with what Obama said is that it’s basically untrue. In southwestern Pennsylvania, religion, hunting, and insularity predate the post-industrial era. They’ve have become politically manipulable points in part because of economic decline, but to confuse wedge issues with traditional values is the mark of the high-minded reformer or the political junkie, or both. It’s the kind of mistake one could make only from a great distance, once those voters had become almost entirely abstract – and, again, no one wants to be an abstraction.
…
But Obama’s devotees, who have an unattractively worshipful tendency to blame his mistakes on everyone but him, would do their candidate and the Democratic Party a favor by acknowledging the damage he’s done to both. It wasn’t accidental. Obama betrayed his own and his Party’s essential weakness, and in the process handed the opposition a great gift. He won’t be able to turn this weakness into the kind of strength that ends eras and wins elections until he understands what happened over the past few days.
From new-to-me but darn interesting blogger Tom Watson:
And some of that thinking manifests itself in shouts of “real Democrat” and the like. But in my view, suggesting that only Barack Obama and his backers are the “real Democrats,” and that the party would best be served by the leave-taking of Clinton and her base, is so much whistling past the graveyard. If she does, you become a third party overnight. If the electoral map shows you anything, it shows in hues of blues and red and purple the continued need for a Democratic coalition based on economic common cause.
But hey, they’re all just concern trolls and can comfortably be ignored – right, boys?
AL,
If the point is, that the Democratic party has excesses, or that there are idiots that identify themselves as progressives – well, no sh*t, sherlock.
That doesn’t have much to do with YOU being a concern troll. And not standing up (rhetorically, speaking, in electronic print) for the values you profess, or be willing to take it to the other side, when they dump on those values.
Two of the three of those people you quote – not sure about Packer – DO stand up for the issues they care about, make common cause with democrats when appropriate, and take it to the opposite side.
Hey, if you begin showing one hundredth the moxie for standing up for the people who share your values, or taking it to the people who don’t share your values (except on the war, of course), you wouldn’t be getting as much crap as you are.
But of course, the one note concern troll stuff (if democrats want to keep me, they need to stop doing X – and progressives are idiots about y, and liberals are tools for believing z), and the pro-Iraq occupation stuff, dominates your output.
Except, hypo, that he stuff I’ve been dinging the D’s on for the last few years – other than the war, which we’ll shelve for a moment – are exactly the issues we’re discussing today.
With all due respect, I’ve been tooting this horn since 2003, when I started blogging. No, I don’t spend a lot of time attacking R’s; I have a finite amount of time to spend on this and other folks are doing that just fine.
But how about this as a thought exercise – how about engaging the issues honestly and with an eye to whatever truth that the arguments about them may contain, instead of deciding engaging the person who’s making the argument??
A.L.
Because I didn’t know what a “concern troll” was, I looked it up.
hypocrisyrules:
What were your values again?
It was Mark Warner’s point that the nation is composed of people who don’t all share the same values. Pro-lifers have been mostly purged from the Democratic elite, but there are hordes of life-long Democrats who are pro-life.
And when you’re running for leader of the entire nation, you might – and hold your hat, because I’m about to lay a totally mind-blowing notion on you – you just might want to appeal to Republicans, yes, REPUBLICANS, at a slightly higher level than pretending that they’re all stupid and evil.
But when conservative Democrats – even dissenting non-conservative Democrats – make you puke your guts out, you’re a long way from understanding how to govern an entire country, and even if you win the result will be an exercise in futility for you and the entire nation. You can get in the door, but your progressive agenda won’t be worth dick once you’re in there.
I guarantee you there are Democrats who will vote for McCain. He doesn’t have to reach out to them, because you guys push them on him. I know Democrats who vote a straight line except when it comes to POTUS, because they don’t trust your wonder-boys on God, guns, or babies.
Maybe you should try showing one percent respect for people who disagree with you, just starting with Democrats. Including the many Democrats across the country who support the mission in Iraq.
bq. Including the many Democrats across the country who support the mission in Iraq.
You know them all, Glenn?
“You actually might.”:http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm
\”Looking back, do you think the United States did the right thing in taking military action against Iraq, or should the U.S. have stayed out?\\\”
Right Thing/Stayed Out/Unsure (in %)
ALL adults 34/62/4
Republicans 68/26/6
Democrats 13/85/ 2
Independents 32/62/6
[Bad link corrected. Thanks for at least trying this time. –NM]
Sepp, you’re going to have to do better than that if you want to keep playing in this sandbox.
Say for the sake of argument that only 6% of the voting population both identified as Dems and answered “Right Thing”.
What number of people is that? As a fraction, you might call it “few”; and as a number, it might be many (800k? 1 million?), no? So your point is kind of a nonpoint.
Come on, are you bringing your “A” game or just wasting time here?
There is a good case for Armed Liberal to become a Republican. Better to be welcome as a Republican than to be a “concern troll” Democrat.
If you want victory, the Republican party is your natural home. That’s obvious.
If you are serious about second amendment rights, the Republican Party should be your party.
You don’t have to be racist to be Republican. That’s not what the party is about. And if you can’t stand a party with any racists in it, then you can’t belong to any party.
There’s no reason you can’t promote liberal causes as a Republican. Arnold Schwarzenegger has done fine as a Republican. Richard Nixon way back when did many things that nowadays would be considered liberal. Rudi Giulian did fine as a socially liberal Republican mayor of New York, and he got his fair shot at the presidency. His campaign was derailed because he followed a plan that turned out to entail getting beaten like a carpet in all the early states and then hoping Florida would back a loser, not because he didn’t fit a socially conservative mold; and the man who inherited his votes and will be the Republican nominee for president also breaks with conservatives when he thinks it’s a good idea. That makes people gnash their teeth, but it hasn’t done him any harm.
You do have to give up the good opinions of those who don’t tolerate anyone but real Democrats, and there’s a lot of people like that. But if you’ve already lost the good opinion of those who don’t tolerate anyone but real democrats, so what? It’s better to have good company than to be isolated with a “concern troll” albatross hung around your neck.
It’s worth thinking about, seriously.
There is a good case for Armed Liberal to become a Republican.
Yes, please. Time for him to come out of the closet.
If he were a real “liberal,” he’d be excoriating McCain and the Republicans for holding up Webb’s New G.I. Bill,
but as he says, No, I don’t spend a lot of time attacking R’s; I have a finite amount of time to spend on this and other folks are doing that just fine.
And it’s a more productive use of time coming up with the idea that Roy Edroso’s mockery of Michelle Malkin is going to cost Democrats the election?
NM, putting aside for one moment the disconnect between polling “all adults” and “actual voters”, you forgot a key slice there: Independants in the Right Thing category. Combined with the Democrats with the same response, and using the “2004”:http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html voter demographic breakdown, that comes out to 13% of the likely voting population who are _not_ Republicans but agree with AL on the war.
In case you missed it, the last few national elections were decided by smaller margins than 13%. If the Democrats could put together a platform that was strong on other issues without including a foreign policy that alienated this 13%, they could very well sweep national elections for the next few years. They might even pick up another 9% from Republicans in the Stayed Out category, assuming the Republicans were disgruntled enough to switch candidates.
But as AL has repeatedly pointed out, the Democrats are *not* interested in expanding their base. They routinely exclude anyone who is not sufficiently anti-war. They go on purges of those deemed not to be a True Democrat, borrowing the latest definition of such from the nearst frothy Daily Kos rant. They cling bitterly to guns, religi– sorry, I mean they cling to antique ideas of class warfare and identity politics, engaging in the kind of snobbish elitism AL has been trying to point out for the past few days, and subsequently lose “the average guy” when pitching their domestic agenda.
I will leave alone the question of whether the Democratic platform can actually be expanded to avoid alienating this 13%. I don’t have a dog in that fight, I’ll let AL battle it out as a rearguard action against the MyDD loonies. But I must say, after observing the reaction of the True Believers railing against AL as a “concern troll”, I think the party is a long way off from being able to undergo _any_ rational introspection at all.
I’ll second David Blue. AL, it might be worth it for you to write (or repost) a “Why I’m Still a Democrat” essay, to dissuade your current party from trying to throw you out and the opposition from trying to recruit you.
Ok, let’s try this one on for size: AL insists that he wants a Democratic foreign policy that doesn’t involve “cutting and running” from Iraq, and Unbeliever chides the Democrats for excluding anyone who is insufficiently anti-war. That being the case, I have a few simple questions:
1. What foreign policy, specifically, does AL want from the Democrats? He’s been very clear that he doesn’t like what they’ve currently got, but beyond the vague goal of “victory in Iraq” I have no idea what he’d like to see. And the problem with “victory in Iraq” is that nobody – NOBODY, certainly not AL himself, or the posters and conservative commenters on this blog – seems to have any concrete plans for *how* to achieve that victory. All we get are endless exhortations to remain firm and reminders that “the other side is hurting too”… but remaining firm is costing us hundreds of billions and hundreds of lives a year, and a lot of people, a big chunk of the country, and a substantial majority of Democrats, are simply coming to the conclusion that the price we’re paying isn’t worth the results we’re seeing, or likely to get. Y’all may not _like_ that conclusion, but it’s a reasonable position for people to take and support. And until you can suggest a better alternative – and suggest one _now_, AL, not in some eternally distant post you’re always working on – then please do shut the hell up about how the Democrats are failing by not providing you with a non-existent magic wand to make everything better.
2. Absent the magical “fix everything” policy AL wants, and can’t get, I’d like guys like Unbeliever to explain to me how exactly a largely binary issue like the Iraq war can be structured not to “exclude anyone who is not sufficiently anti-war”. In general, people either want us to stay in Iraq until the war is won, or leave now and spare ourselves future grief. There’s not a huge middle ground between those positions, and what little there is quickly gets polarized by the opposing sides into one camp or another. Obama and Clinton are not Code Pink, and John McCain is not irrevocably committed to World War III in the Middle East – but you wouldn’t know it by the way Democrats and Republicans talk about the opposing candidates. More importantly, by making accommodations for the other side on the war issue, you’re inevitably gonna lose some of the people you already have. If, in some alternate reality, for example, the Dems had nominated Joe Lieberman for President, they’d hemorrhage people who _are_ strongly against the war, and would likely end up substantially worse off in total votes. Likewise, for all the charges that the Democrats aren’t accommodating pro-war people, the Republicans aren’t exactly bending over backwards to embrace anti-war people.
I am not AL. I am a former Democrat (who voted and campaigned for Dukakis let alone Clinton mind you). While I cannot speak for AL, my desires for foreign policy would be:
1. Victory in Iraq defined as: basically pro-American Iraqi regime, continued US military presence, fewer than 30 US casualties a month, ability to use Iraq for various operations against Iran as needed, AQ and Iran’s influence reduced.
I don’t see these as unachievable goals, they would seem to require proper execution along the lines of Petraeus, it would seem that we are close to that goal.
2. Efforts not to “lose” in Afghanistan or Pakistan. Stave off disaster (which would be either AQ taking over Afghanistan or Pakistan or likely, both).
3. Deterrence policy for “Tribes With Nukes” and the coming proliferators, including spelled out automatic responses to an attack on US cities by nukes from the terrorist angle (i.e. no ballistic missile attack). Which would be a short list of nations targeted (the “tribes” with “nukes”) for strategic destruction.
4. Commitment to use military force when needed, and see it to victory, with more than impotent missile strikes or the bare minimum. Including use military force if absolutely required to prevent Iran from going nuclear [without which, Iran WILL go nuclear. Period.]
This would broadly, require recognition that nuclear proliferation is inevitable, given mistakes and can-kicking that Clinton-Bush did with Pakistan and North Korea and Iran, and that US strategic interests require military action when all else fails to minimize nuclear proliferation. We can’t stop it all, but we can prevent it from going completely global. I’d rather not lose NYC or DC because Dems are wedded to absolute pacifism.
And sorry, yes Hillary and Obama are Code Pink/Moveon.org. They’ve pulled military action off the table for Iran, which has both raced to nuclear breakout status (6,000 new centrifuges, boasting about it), and threatened/boasted/promised to proliferate throughout the Muslim world. On this Hillary and Obama (and yes McCain too) are silent. Which is deeply unhealthy for the political system.
McCain at least will joke about “bomb Iran” (which is good because anything that creates fear about US intentions helps us with Iran). Hillary and Obama are in political debt to Kos, Code Pink, ANSWER etc. and so Iran fears them not. Creating a disaster. Being weak merely invites more aggression. Not good when other nations have the bomb and doubt our will to respond. Particularly if it’s just handed off to some cousin and everyone looks baffled “how did that happen?”
Democrats broadly are fixed back in the 1970s. Everything is SALT II with the President talking with Brezhnev. Madness. Hence Obama’s “Muslim Summit.” Not responsive to Tribes With Nukes(tm).
I’d rather not lose NYC or DC because Dems are wedded to absolute pacifism. And sorry, yes Hillary and Obama are Code Pink/Moveon.org. They’ve pulled military action off the table for Iran, which has both raced to nuclear breakout status (6,000 new centrifuges, boasting about it), and threatened/boasted/promised to proliferate throughout the Muslim world. On this Hillary and Obama (and yes McCain too) are silent. Which is deeply unhealthy for the political system.
Dude, that’s ridiculous. The Democrats have been voting exactly the same as the Republicans w/r/t money for the Iraq & Afghanistan occupations. They have only been complaining more. Rep. Murtha is now set to give Bush all the money he wants in the latest supplemental. (Which Bush has said he will veto because the Democrats have tacked a couple of extra proposals onto it.)
Also, it is just not true that Obama or Clinton has taken military action against Iran ‘off the table’. They have both left it quite open, even the possibility of a nuclear strike, while also expressing openness to talk with the Iranian state. I know this because I have been focussing on the grim issue of a possible US attack on Iran, and its likely consequences, for the past year.
Finally, it is not true that Iran has threatened to proliferate throughout the Muslim world. They have stated that if the US attacks them they will retaliate. Ahmadinejad continually talks shit about the USA, because he’s a shit talker. But, while Iran is focussed on nuclear power, there is no credible proof that they have ever had a nuclear weapons program. Even the recent NIE stated that there has been no nuclear weapons program in Iran since at least 2003. You should look under the propaganda in our media about Iran if you want a realistic view of that nation.
Oh, God! I hope that was parody! With a name like Jim Rockford, it must be.
“And sorry, yes Hillary and Obama are Code Pink/Moveon.org. They’ve pulled military action off the table for Iran, which has both raced to nuclear breakout status (6,000 new centrifuges, boasting about it), and threatened/boasted/promised to proliferate throughout the Muslim world. On this Hillary and Obama (and yes McCain too) are silent. Which is deeply unhealthy for the political system.
McCain at least will joke about “bomb Iran” (which is good because anything that creates fear about US intentions helps us with Iran). Hillary and Obama are in political debt to Kos, Code Pink, ANSWER etc. and so Iran fears them not. Creating a disaster. Being weak merely invites more aggression. Not good when other nations have the bomb and doubt our will to respond. Particularly if it’s just handed off to some cousin and everyone looks baffled “how did that happen?”
Democrats broadly are fixed back in the 1970s. Everything is SALT II with the President talking with Brezhnev. Madness. Hence Obama’s “Muslim Summit.” Not responsive to Tribes With Nukesâ„¢.”
And congratulations, AL. I didn’t think it was possible to find a more vacuous blogger than McCardle who still managed to get comments.
Please, find me an intelligent Republican. I dare you.
[Gratuitous after”thought”, not adding to civil discourse. In other words, a flatulent troll. Deleted. –NM]
*Jim Rockford at 12*
_And sorry, yes Hillary and Obama are Code Pink/Moveon.org. They’ve pulled military action off the table for Iran, which has both raced to nuclear breakout status_
Actually, neither of them have taken military action off the table. Here is his statement “from last nights debate”:http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN1639555120080417?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=10112 where he actually says “no options off the table.”
*Glen at 8*
_Maybe you should try showing one percent respect for people who disagree with you, just starting with Democrats. Including the many Democrats across the country who support the mission in Iraq._
How often has that 1% of respect been there from those who believed in the invasion of Iraq been towards those who did not, or even those who did and came to believe it was a mistake?
While you may not have faced it, I was _actually_ called a traitor when I opposed the Iraq war, because I did not believe the evidence. Were you as tolerant then? Are you as tolerant, or is the Republican party as tolerant, now to those who believe Iraq makes our position more unstable? Would I be accepted into the general Republican populace with these views?
I could find on this site many instances of calling someone with similar views unpatriotic, traitorous, and the like. Let alone ones that would be found on sites further right.
_And when you’re running for leader of the entire nation, you might – and hold your hat, because I’m about to lay a totally mind-blowing notion on you – you just might want to appeal to Republicans, yes, REPUBLICANS, at a slightly higher level than pretending that they’re all stupid and evil._
Snarky – why? it’s not like that’s different than how Republicans ran, and won, in 2004?
Real – With a solid 30/40% middle, and the astounding mismanagement Republicans have done over the past 6 years, how is this not a portion(not entire) of strategy?
#16 from Dave:
How often have such views been put forward in the first place, politely, fairly, in neutral language, and by themselves, that is not compounded with conspiracy theories, allegations and implications of bad faith and so on?
Returning to the topic of the thread, the “concern troll rag,” how many people are content to say that they think Armed Liberal is mistaken, and that they have a have a better view that they are willing to support with substantial argument or evidence?
Don’t worry AL, I believe your liberal intentions.
Democrats are currently battling a problem that is intrinsic to both political parties: typically, the candidates for a presidential position have the least clue what the “average american” is like.
There was Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagen….. anybody else?
How many candidates(you can include senators in this list) in the last 20 years have:
1) Not grown up rich or
2) Not grown up with political “royalty”
George Bush did very well in 2000 running on the “washington outsider” idea. I think much of that was the “idea” that a blue-collar guy would finally run things. Of course, he’s not, and he didn’t. But the candidate who does the better job of at least properly empathizing with blue-collar workers is going to win those votes.
Politeness is a big deal. Fair statements of what your opponent says are a big deal. Positive presentation of your ideas in un-ironic, un-emotive language, one by one so that they are easy to engage with, is a big deal. Not swearing, either directly or by implication, is a big deal in my opinion. Fighting arguments, not people, is a big deal.
Playing it straight, never trying to win a point or an argument by bluff or trickery, by exploiting others’ ignorance or timidity or by making yourself someone a reasonable person would prefer not to argue with, is a huge deal.
The ability to acknowledge and correct errors clearly and quickly, to back up rather than bluffing it out, is a big deal. In my opinion, it’s a strong sign of a superior person, in Confucius’ sense. The ability to quickly and clearly acknowledge others’ errors and their corrections with no “victory” dance, so that further discussion in good faith is facilitated rather than inhibited, is if anything an even rarer merit.
This is a good site. If you act right, people like Nortius Maximus see it, and you get respect.
If you act like Michael Fumento did, then you’re going to have problems even if you have all sorts of important advantages, as he did. (Eyes-on experience deserves and gets respect, for one thing. But that respect can be counter-balanced.)
And that’s as it should be.
LWM, your comments suggest that your third-grade teacher is looking for you with a tardy slip. You’re more than welcome to sick around and disagree – by making adult arguments, even if they heatedly disagree with my stances or the stances anyone else here…
A.L.
bq. and Unbeliever chides the Democrats for excluding anyone who is insufficiently anti-war.
Actually that is just one symptom of the larger problem with the party. I cite it specifically because it seems to be the symptom that gets AL kicked to the curb when the cool kids meet at Democratic parties. But for the purposes of this critique, it works fine as a case-in-point.
bq. 1. What foreign policy, specifically, does AL want from the Democrats?
I don’t know, why don’t you ask him instead of just writing him off as a “concern troll”? This is exactly AL’s point: right now, in the party, there is more interest in purges and second-guessing decisions from Bush’s first term, than there is in developing either a coherent policy or a broadly electable one.
Quite frankly, whatever they put forward, _I_ probably won’t believe them because the national party has lost all credibility with me on foreign policy. And I’m not even a Republican, just one of the 26% of likely Independant voters Democrats need to attract in order to approach a majority. I have no inherent interest in helping the Democrats win an election, but I _would_ like to see a half-decent alternative to the GOP when I go to the ballot box.
If AL loses his struggle within the party, then I don’t see the Democrats providing me that choice any time soon.
bq. I’d like guys like Unbeliever to explain to me how exactly a largely binary issue like the Iraq war can be structured not to “exclude anyone who is not sufficiently anti-war”.
Well gee, why don’t you try asking the Republicans? They seem to do just fine accomodating GOP members who are not sufficiently pro-war for the hawkish wing of the party.
Party politics aside, you are incorrect that the war is a binary issue. You could reduce it to such if you were a pollster asking “are you for or against the war”, but translating that into a similarly simplistic policy stance is absurd… and that is _exactly_ what happened in the Democratic party over the past few years. At the national level, anyway.
The rest of your post amounts to political analysis which I disagree with, but smarter people with more column inches have already covered that ground _ad nauseum_. Though I will highlight this:
bq. Likewise, for all the charges that the Democrats aren’t accommodating pro-war people, the Republicans aren’t exactly bending over backwards to embrace anti-war people.
Apparently you never heard of Ron Paul. He’s not the front runner, but he’s not getting cast out of the party either. He may be the GOP version of Dennis Kucinich, but he has a significant minority following within the party that _no one is trying to eject_.
How often have such views been put forward in the first place, politely, fairly, in neutral language, and by themselves, that is not compounded with conspiracy theories, allegations and implications of bad faith and so on?
I have on a couple of occasions, to people I am close to, but who disagree with me vehemently.
I’ve often gotten back anger. Enough of an emotional reaction that it deters me from trying again for quite a while.
Sometimes I’ve gotten blank incomprehension, or an honest description of why they disagree.
The problem with this question, David_Blue, is that it’s really hard to talk about these things with anyone who is not close to you. There are very few oppportunities for debate about this. There is something of a taboo against discussing wars in our culture. Most people just want to obey the faction that they consider to be dominant, and not make waves.
There is an argument that says it is ok to take a harder stance against US misbehavior because they expect more from the US than less democratic countries. Using the same reasoning as discussed here, wouldn’t that make the people using that argument concern trolls?
Marc,
November, 2004.
Enough said eh?
Chris-
You said:
bq. …a big chunk of the country, and a substantial majority of Democrats, are simply coming to the conclusion that the price we’re paying isn’t worth the results we’re seeing, or likely to get.
I would suggest that you change your reference points and listen to other news outlets and opinion sources. Your statement is simply untrue. Look the nation is divided these days. The current admin has not sold my next point sufficiently well to convince the mass opinion that we really are in a generational conflict.
Then there is the Left wing of the Democrat party who discounts those of us who are mainstream America as those who cling to our faith, guns and anti-immigrant bias as xenophobia because we are bitter about our circumstances without knowing that we do all we can everyday to change those circumstances if we must. The attitude displayed by Obama and most of the usual suspects in the Democrat party today is so elitist and dismissive of most of America, I for one DO NOT want to give them the chance to lead this country they apparently know little about.
Also, you said:
bq. …NOBODY, certainly not AL himself, or the posters and conservative commenter’s on this blog – seems to have any concrete plans for how to achieve that victory.
Again, simply untrue. Anyone with any experience in the ways of war knows that what Ralph Peter says is true, and I paraphrase, ‘The winner of a military conflict is determined not by the winner but when one side says, ‘I have had enough!’ that then determines who the LOSER becomes.’ Got that one? The corollary is that when you face an enemy determined to win or die tryin’ as we do with the radical Islamofascists or whatever your PC sensibilities wants to call the jihadis and they do not care about not dying, there is a fundamental problem. I think that is where the disconnect becomes a living, breathing entity that the Liberal mind cannot grasp. So what then is victory? Staying the course OR adjusting that course as Petraeus has done to fit the circumstances until the majority of the Islamic world says ‘Uncle’ and expels the radicals. OR the hard one is that we may have to become for a time what we do not wish to become and kill lots and lots of Muslims. I would hope that it will not come to that and the Ummah comes to rationality.
Tokay, I gotta go figure a software installation problem out but I’ll be back.
To take Robohobo’s points in reverse order.
Oh, rubbish. Statements like this are a dime a dozen from losing sides like the Confederacy, the Nazis, and the Japanese, intended to offset tactical and strategic bankruptcy.
Berlin fell less than two weeks later.
Jeff Davis chimes in:
Richmond fell later that day, I believe.
Will is no more a plan than is hope.
As far as the idea that the Iraq War is not worth it, the Defeatocrats and the two-thirds of the country who agree with them now got support today from a rather surprising source.
No word yet on whether the authors of the study wear flag pins on their pajamas.
AJL, you are confusing will and pep talks with _ability_. In case you forgot your Clausewitz (or never bothered to read in the first place), one of the targets of war is the enemy’s will to fight, but even though it is a critical component of fighting a war, overcoming it is not the _only_ way to defeat an opponent (elimination of his forces, elimination of his economic base, completely restricting his freedom of action, etc).
Perhaps the logic escapes you, but basically you confused a condition for loss as the sole deciding condition for victory. An illogical leap on your part, and certainly not what was being posited; your counterexamples are moot as they do not address the real causes of the speaker’s defeat.
(There was a much longer explanation here, but I deleted it as I assume most commenters here already knew the basics of warfare.)
bq. Will is no more a plan than is hope.
Good thing the battle plan for Iraq entails more than mere hope, no matter what Keith Olbermann tries to tell you in his nightly screeds. But Will is a definite weak point in our war efforts, and defeating our Will is the only remaining hope al Qaeda has for achieving any measure of victory. Efforts to diminish or harm that Will do very real damage to the efforts of a nation involved in a very real war.
It is basic misunderstandings of the nature of War such as the one above, which make me despair of ever seeing a rational platform on the matter from the Democratic party. But hey, don’t mind us crazy rationalists, feel free to toss out a few “concern troll” labels now.
I would think, Unbeliever, that your disagreement is with Robohobo and his source, and not with me.
Our problems in Iraq do not arise from a priori lack of will, but from unmet promises of glorious mission accomplished and from your inability to articulate, much less attain, and concept of victory other than staying in Iraq longer than the Iraqis.
Moreover, Al Qaeda has already achieved no small measure of victory in Iraq, such as reducing our pressure in Afghanistan enough to enable them to regroup, damaging our relationship with our allies, and recruiting tens of thousands (or more) new jihadis and jihadi sympathizers. Way to go, guys!
No, Robohobo was right, wars aren’t decided by having a winner emerge, they are most often determined by having a _loser_ emerge. He simply didn’t articulate the full theory, which I assume he is already aware of, that one could lose through other means as well as by losing the will to fight (i.e. annihilation or lack of freedom to act). However _you_ act as if that was the _only_ component of the theory, as shown by the quotes you tried to pass off as counterexamples.
bq. Our problems in Iraq do not arise from a priori lack of will, but from unmet promises of glorious mission accomplished
No. That may be where the problem of maintaining our will to fight arises, but not our tactical problems in Iraq. I’ve already blasted the Bush Administration for its total ineptitude at fighting a “media war” or managing expectations; that hardly excuses the left’s willingness to hand actual victory to al Qaeda in the name of ZOMG NEO-CONS BAD.
bq. and from your inability to articulate, much less attain, and concept of victory other than staying in Iraq longer than the Iraqis.
Beating up a strawman only enlightens yourself, and maybe the guy who sold you the straw.
Look, if you’re not going to bother reading the numerous press releases, position papers, articles, posts, etc from the Administration, Congress, the Pentagon, think tanks, hawks with newspaper columns, conservative sites, AL himself, or _whoever_, how do you expect anyone other than the die hard anti-war fringe to take the party seriously?
Shorter Unbeliever: We stay until we find the pony.
Wow.
I didn’t realize people were still relying on the tired “Shorter X:” formulations as a way of sidestepping an argument they have no answer to, by completely replacing the actual position spelled out by an opponent with a totally nonsensical one made up out of whole cloth.
I guess for some people, though, dishonesty never goes out of style.
bq. I don’t know, why don’t you ask him [about foreign policy] instead of just writing him off as a “concern troll”? This is exactly AL’s point: right now, in the party, there is more interest in purges and second-guessing decisions from Bush’s first term, than there is in developing either a coherent policy or a broadly electable one.
Unbeliever, you seem to be under the impression that this is the first time we’ve been through this, and that we’re attacking AL based only on the fact that he’s pro-Iraq war. In fact, people have been pointing out AL’s bogus posturing on being a liberal Democrat for years now, and it’s based on a lot more than his war position.
And I don’t call the man a “concern troll”, that’s other people. Get your facts straight, and get some context before you dive into a debate like this.
bq. Quite frankly, whatever they put forward, I probably won’t believe them because the national party has lost all credibility with me on foreign policy. And I’m not even a Republican, just one of the 26% of likely Independant voters Democrats need to attract in order to approach a majority. I have no inherent interest in helping the Democrats win an election, but I would like to see a half-decent alternative to the GOP when I go to the ballot box.
Right, you’re an “independent” who’s pretty much written off the Dems, and envision an alternative to the GOP that’s pretty much GOP-lite, from the sound of things. Thanks, but no thanks – I think the Dems did fine in 2006 without pandering to Republicans-in-all-but-name such as yourself (RIABNs? anti-RINOs?) and we’ll do fine in 2008 as well, given how many people _have_ ditched the GOP for the Dems already. (But I guess you don’t think they exist, given how unaccommodating you apparently think the Dems are?)
bq. If AL loses his struggle within the party, then I don’t see the Democrats providing me that choice any time soon.
Quel dommage.
bq. Well gee, why don’t you try asking the Republicans? They seem to do just fine accomodating GOP members who are not sufficiently pro-war for the hawkish wing of the party.
bq. …
bq. Apparently you never heard of Ron Paul. He’s not the front runner, but he’s not getting cast out of the party either. He may be the GOP version of Dennis Kucinich, but he has a significant minority following within the party that no one is trying to eject.
Unbeliever, have you actually ever _talked_ to a Ron Paul supporter? The ones I’ve met don’t consider themselves loyal Republicans who just happen to disagree on a few issues – they hate the war, and the existing Republican establishment, with a fiery passion that most Democrats don’t come close to matching. And the feeling’s mutual, if you take a look at the way Paul and his supporters are trashed by mainstream Republicans, like the guys on The Corner. The GOP isn’t “accommodating” Ron Paul’s people, they’re fighting off a virulent splinter faction from within. And as for ejecting Ron Paul, I can pretty much guarantee that if Paul represented anything bigger than a rural, backwater congressional district, he wouldn’t go unchallenged for long.
bq. Look, if you’re not going to bother reading the numerous press releases, position papers, articles, posts, etc from the Administration, Congress, the Pentagon, think tanks, hawks with newspaper columns, conservative sites, AL himself, or whoever, how do you expect anyone other than the die hard anti-war fringe to take the party seriously?
You mean the same press releases, position papers, articles, posts, etc from the Administration, Congress, the Pentagon, think tanks, hawks with newspaper columns, conservative sites, AL himself, or whoever, that’ve been telling us victory was nigh, or that the _new_ strategy would fix everything, for *five years* now? Even as things remained the same or got worse? Even as George Bush admits point blank that he’ll lie and say whatever’s necessary to continue the war?
The fact that you don’t realize how long you’ve been repeating the same tripe, while at the same time reducing the anti-war position to “ZOMG NEO-CONS BAD” explains a great deal. Then again, if you’re delusional enough to suggest it’s al Qaeda we’re fighting in Iraq (hint: they’re not first and foremost amongst our enemies there – or even third or fourth, no matter what McCain says) then it’s not surprising you can’t make those kinds of distinctions.
Chris, I’ve always said Iraq would take a long time – six years to a decade before we really knew where we stood. So please don’t lump me in with that crowd, OK?
A.L.
Chris, I’m dying to know what my positions are that isolate me from mainstream liberalism – other than the war??
What, my belief in patriotism and American exceptionalism?
I think the accusation is kinda bullshit, because I started blogging about the war, and it’s been an issue since 2003.
A.L.
OK, I’ll try the expanded version.
Ninety-nine percent of the press releases and speeches and newspaper columns have been about “There is no substitute for victory” and “Democratic cut-and-run would be a disaster” and “We will stay as long as it takes.” Oh, and announcements that the war has been won.
As long as what takes?
As an exception, George Bush did introduce the Permanent Surge with some specific targets:
We did not hold the Iraqi government to these benchmarks, and with the partial exception of de-Baathification reform, they did not meet them. Nor is the sight of Iraqi Police running away from a fight in Sadr City very encouraging, despite endless amounts of training they have supposedly received.
The Bush Administration is not losing this war in the media; for perhaps two years after the invasion they were parroting all of the lies. WMD. “There is no insurgency”. “Last throes”. The Bush Administration is losing, or has lost, this war because there is no stable, democratic Iraq on the horizon and no visible way of changing that.
bq. Chris, I’ve always said Iraq would take a long time – six years to a decade before we really knew where we stood. So please don’t lump me in with that crowd, OK?
AL, you’re right – I cut and paste from Unbeliever, and that formulation was not accurate. You’re not a “victory is nigh” guy, you’re a “we need to stay in until we win, even if we have no idea how that will occur” guy, as I pointed out in comment #11.
So… care to address that one?
bq. Chris, I’m dying to know what my positions are that isolate me from mainstream liberalism – other than the war??
AL, you keep trying to define this in terms of your positions, when what people are generally criticizing you for is your _actions_ – your failure to _stand up_ for mainstream liberal values, and your constant attacks on the party.
(And before you say that you only have time to critique the Democrats, or that attacking the Democrats helps you formulate ideas for the “real world”, or that attacking the Democrats is for the good of the party, really, trust me… why don’t you review my responses on this thread, which pretty much covers all that?)
That said, I’ll point out that it’s not _just_ the war, it’s your willingness to look the other way on a whole host of issues in order to get the war you want. As I’ve said before, I’m sure you agree with liberals on a lot of things, but I don’t think it’s unfair to question how much of a liberal you actually are when you’re basically saying that supporting a war of choice is more important to you than: the environment, abortion rights, judicial appointments, progressive taxation, torture, radically unchecked executive power, health care, social security, stem cell research, civil liberties, loose nukes, renewable energy policy, global warming, unions, corporate regulation… and the list goes on. All those liberal issues *combined* are less important to you than trashing the Democrats and supporting Iraq. For me, that’s definitely questionable behavior for a liberal of any stripe.
Lastly I’ll also point out that your buddy Kevin Drum pointed out at least a few positions you advanced that were decidedly… odd, for a liberal. (And yes, I’ve read your defense – doesn’t really change the point that you’re advocating more than a little non-mainstream stuff.)
bq. Unbeliever, you seem to be under the impression that this is the first time we’ve been through this
No, this is just the first time I’ve bothered defending him. I already know what AL’s answer to the question would be, and I found it rather funny that after all the times you’ve “been through this”, you felt you needed to ask yet again. Either you’re not paying attention or you’re being fatuous.
bq. Right, you’re an “independent” who’s pretty much written off the Dems
Correct so far…
bq. and envision an alternative to the GOP that’s pretty much GOP-lite
…swing and a miss. Generally speaking, party platforms address foreign policy, domestic policy, and economic/fiscal policy. I envision a Democratic party that offers a diametrically opposite alternative to the domestic policies of the GOP, a “socialism lite” version of economic policies without resorting to protectionism, and a foreign policy more in the vein of Scoop Jackson than Jimmy Carter.
More importantly, they would pitch all this without resorting to the bogus class warfare trope, without invoking white liberal guilt and identity politics, without playing up victimhood or railing about Republican conspiracies. They would abandon emotional arguments when talking about economics, lay off the reflexive charges of racism when talking about illegal immigration, treat the average non-minority voter with a modicum of respect, and otherwise champion the rule of law and the original intent of the Constitution when coming up with policies.
I can’t promise I would vote for them. (On the national level; I already vote for plenty of Democrats on the state and local level.) But that’s hardly GOP lite, and it would be a damn sight better than what the party offers today.
Oops, forgot to address one of the sillier points:
bq. Unbeliever, have you actually ever talked to a Ron Paul supporter?
Most of my Republican friends down here are Ron Paul supporters, with a smattering of Huckabee guys. (I’ve never actually talked to Giuliani supporter, but given how he fared that might not be so surprising.)
bq. The ones I’ve met don’t consider themselves loyal Republicans who just happen to disagree on a few issues – they hate the war, and the existing Republican establishment, with a fiery passion that most Democrats don’t come close to matching.
News flash: _most of the Republican rank and file_ hate the current GOP establishment. That’s why they lost in 2006, not because the Democrats suddenly started picking up Republican votes. And Ron Paul’s supporters aren’t there just because they hate the war; he does pick up the anti-war Republicans, but there is more to it than that (see below).
bq. And the feeling’s mutual, if you take a look at the way Paul and his supporters are trashed by mainstream Republicans, like the guys on The Corner. The GOP isn’t “accommodating” Ron Paul’s people, they’re fighting off a virulent splinter faction from within.
Maybe this is my fault for assuming everyone has the same knowledge about political history, but both your analysis and your characterizations are completely wrong. Ron Paul gets trashed not because he’s against the war or because he has a passionate following, but because he’s a small-l libertarian acting like a big-L Libertarian**; you might say he’s a RINO because he’s a crypto-Libertarian.
Practically _no one_ votes for libertarians, and even fewer still for Libertarians, because although they have the most consistent and coherent political philosophy of any faction of any party, it frequently leads to unpopular and unelectable policies that are beyond the pale for most voters. And sometimes it just leads to outright bad policy. (Case in point: Paul’s idea to bring back the gold standard. His argument would be solid if we were back at the turn of the century, but the ramifications would be disastrous in today’s economy.)
In other words, when Ron Paul gets jumped on it’s because of a long understood historical disagreement with his wing of the party. He represents the energetic idealists in the party, who have not had a champion for roughly a decade now. But his ideas still get play, and they’re still influencing the campaigns. In any case the GOP is *not* rejecting him or calling for a purge of small-l libertarians; after the election he’ll still have an influential role on shaping the debate within the party.
(The Corner jumps on him more than the other conservative elites because The Corner is packed by the realist wing. But they don’t call for kicking him out him like Kos called for Lieberman’s expulsion. And if you read the Corner for an extended period of time, you’d realize even they have more libertarian positions than the average Republicans, and they give better audience to Paul’s ideas–not his campaign–than the Democratic elite do to many red-state Democrats (as cited by AL with the Warner story)).
bq. And as for ejecting Ron Paul, I can pretty much guarantee that if Paul represented anything bigger than a rural, backwater congressional district, he wouldn’t go unchallenged for long.
I doubt it. The GOP has ejected whole factions in the past–most famously the Objectivists. Under Buckley’s New Right conservativism, political philosophies tend to get either rejected or integrated as soon as they arise, and the libertarians have been integrated for some time now that the Libertarians were rejected.
This is an awful lot of insider baseball for one comment, but the short version is: the right’s disagreements with Ron Paul are not analogous to the purges of centrists happening on the left, in part because Paul is _not_ being purged.
**Small-l libertarians are usually more realistic and pragmatic than the rigidly dogmatic Libertarians, who refuse to compromise libertarian ideals with modern realities. Big-L Libertarians got pushed aside and left the GOP to form their own party some time ago, but the libertarians remain part of the GOP Big Tent and have a lot of influence on Republican policies and conservative philosophy.
“Nor is the sight of Iraqi Police running away from a fight in Sadr City very encouraging, despite endless amounts of training they have supposedly received.”
I thought “Bill Roggio’s WS post on the desertions”:http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2008/04/this_was_not_the_fighting_52nd.asp did a good job delving into the actual particulars: most of the deserters were from the newest unit to be activated in the Iraqi Army (the wisdom of using green units in a major combat situation is another discussion). On the police side, there were 16,000 police in Basra, but only 421 (2.6% of the total force) were dismissed for desertion. By comparison, in New Orleans during Katrina “60 officers out of a force of 1,500”:http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/12/09/katrina/main1115305.shtml (or 4%) were fired for deserting their posts.
#35 from Armed Liberal:
Though your question was addressed to Chris, if you’re dying to know, I can help you with that. You are outside the Democratic Party on the war, on the class struggle, on Israel, and on gun violence in two ways.
Therefore I recommend you register to vote Republican (link).
Or it that’s too big a step for now, you could register as an Independent. Armed Independent sounds like you, doesn’t it?
In the class struggle, you are fundamentally out of sympathy with “skybox liberalism” and you always have been. But that’s the kind that rules. Barack Obama’s friends, with whom he talks freely among his peers, are on Billonaire’s Row. From his point of view and theirs, you are a backward and bitter gun-clinger, with many other undesirable traits. Or, his friends are in his church – which also defines you as an enemy, because of your race. From their point of view, in the sermon that converted Obama, you are one of the “white folks” whose “greed rules a world in need”. Or, they are criminal fixers, like Tony Rezko. Are you a “connected” man, with more access and influence than any honest man can have? If not, then you are on the wrong side of the class divide. Or, his friends are terrorists and jihad operatives like William Ayer and Rashid Khalidi (link). Is the judgment that these are good associates one that includes or excludes you, socially and on an international class struggle basis?
On Israel, you have never bought into or even showed much interest in what from a liberal and Democratic point if view is obsessively interesting: the Zionist / Neocon / Likud / Haliburton / “you know who” complex that corrupts America and is a cancer in the Middle East and the world. You’re seriously out of step here. The dance tune is played, but you don’t do the step, and so you are out of harmony with liberals. You ignore the difference, but they can see all the time that your rhetoric and worldview are different from and opposed to theirs. When others are weaving assumptions about Neocons and Zionist aggression into every paragraph, and validating them by consensus, you are the one standing with your arms folded. That doesn’t work.
On gun violence, which is an important “culture wars” liberal topic, you are out of sympathy with and opposed in policy to liberals who strive to make incremental changes in the law to eliminate guns. You have said that’s what it’s about, the elimination of private firearm ownership, whereas those engaged in it, your fellow liberals if you were a real liberal, deny that. And you don’t accept gun rights purely tactically and disingenuously under the pressure of election defeats, rather you point to election results as validating views you hold anyway.
The other way you have shown you are not a liberal in relation to gun violence is that your reaction to school and university massacres has been all about improving doctrine to empower potential victims to fight effectively to save their own lives and the lives of their fellow students and teachers. (You couldn’t slide a thin piece of paper between your views and mine on this.) Not only your policy positions but your sympathies and your whole outlook were the opposite of liberal on this. I read, but unfortunately did not save, an interview with a university professor, who would have a say on his institution remaining a gun-free zone, pooh-poohing the “threat” of another Virginia Tech style gun massacre and instead fulminating against and sneering at the real enemy: the students who would bring guns to campus if it was allowed, with heads full of macho man movie violence, thinking they were going to be big heroes and save everybody, eager to kill, eager to shoot… I can’t accurately remember the details of what the teacher said, but you know that attitudes covering all these bases are mainstream liberal.
You don’t think at all like that. You care about the kids who are being taught in effect that if there’s violence, hide under a desk and wait. You want them to have a better chance of survival.
You’re not a Liberal. You never have been.
Become a Republican. At least become an Independent. At least consider it.
bq. No, this is just the first time I’ve bothered defending him. I already know what AL’s answer to the question would be, and I found it rather funny that after all the times you’ve “been through this”, you felt you needed to ask yet again. Either you’re not paying attention or you’re being fatuous.
Actually, I’ve gone back and forth with AL about his “liberal” identity plenty of times, but we haven’t seen him do more than bitch about foreign policy for years, so I’m interested in what his response’ll be to my question in #11, if we actually get one. That being the case, you seem pretty confused as to who’s asked what, when, and what’s actually happened in the past, if you’re demanding that I ask AL about foreign policy one minute and bemusedly shaking his head over all the times I’ve previously asked him about foreign policy the next.
bq. …swing and a miss. Generally speaking, party platforms address foreign policy, domestic policy, and economic/fiscal policy. I envision a Democratic party that offers a diametrically opposite alternative to the domestic policies of the GOP, a “socialism lite” version of economic policies without resorting to protectionism, and a foreign policy more in the vein of Scoop Jackson than Jimmy Carter.
bq. More importantly, they would pitch all this without resorting to the bogus class warfare trope, without invoking white liberal guilt and identity politics, without playing up victimhood or railing about Republican conspiracies. They would abandon emotional arguments when talking about economics, lay off the reflexive charges of racism when talking about illegal immigration, treat the average non-minority voter with a modicum of respect, and otherwise champion the rule of law and the original intent of the Constitution when coming up with policies.
Ok, let’s pretend for a minute as if a lot of the coded language you’re using above doesn’t directly contradict your earlier assertion that the Democrats should offer a “diametrically opposite” social policy to the GOP and a “socialism lite” economic policy – as if pushing for gay marriage and affirmative action isn’t _exactly_ what Republicans characterize as “identify politics” and “playing up victimhood”, as if progressive taxation and improved social services aren’t exactly what gets slammed as “bogus class warfare”. (And we can generally ignore the wholly unwarranted assumption that Scoop Jackson would have been a modern Joe Lieberman, rather than a modern Jim Webb.) In short, let’s ignore that everything Unbeliever says in the last paragraph above completely belies his assertion that his proposed party wouldn’t be “GOP-lite”.
The fact of the matter is, for good or ill, a lot of Democrats like and want exactly the things you criticize about the party, Unbeliever. In fact, it’s arguable that those things are exactly _why_ they’re Democrats in the first place, and without those elements, there’s a good chance a lot of those people wouldn’t be Democrats at all. So, even if making those changes didn’t completely betray long-standing Democratic ideals, goals, and constituency, I fail to see how it would be good _electoral politics_ to drive out a big chunk of the liberal wing of the party in pursuit of a supposed “centrist” like yourself, who doesn’t even bother pretending that the resulting party would be particularly satisfactory to him.
Chris, I’ll tell you what. I’ll work on a post on liberalism for you over the weekend…
I’m having a serious Songs About Rainbows moment here….
AL —
I’ll note two things. One is that Liberals today are almost exclusively from the moneyed class and want Government to act basically as their private estate. Think of them as a “landless gentry” always wanting higher taxes (which they can escape with expensive lawyers and loopholes) to provide government services that benefit them. Particularly ever expanding sinecures for various people they install.
Second, even Hillary admitted that Moveon dominates the Party, and opposed even the Afghanistan War (which is a matter of record and true).
There is simply no room for you in the Democratic Party if you are not a reflexive Pacifist and “Blame America First” person. Moveon marched against the Afghanistan bombings days after 9/11 in Manhattan. That’s your Democratic Party.
In contrast, the Republican Party has absorbed a lot of Democratic positions, old and new. Heck GWB and Arnold both want to fight global warming (I think it’s a crock). But there you go. So does McCain btw.
I’d call McCain a “moderate Democrat” because that’s what he’d be, in say 1988.
I share your nostalgia for the Great Society, which IMHO did a tremendous amount of good, but let’s face it. Democrats will never spend on things that benefit ordinary people like infrastructure. Instead it will be for stuff like that Yale art student.
bq. News flash: most of the Republican rank and file hate the current GOP establishment. That’s why they lost in 2006, not because the Democrats suddenly started picking up Republican votes. And Ron Paul’s supporters aren’t there just because they hate the war; he does pick up the anti-war Republicans, but there is more to it than that (see below).
This is what we in the reality-based community like to call a “lie”, Unbeliever. Bush held overwhelming majority of support among Republicans until well after the 2006 elections.
bq. In other words, when Ron Paul gets jumped on it’s because of a long understood historical disagreement with his wing of the party. He represents the energetic idealists in the party, who have not had a champion for roughly a decade now. But his ideas still get play, and they’re still influencing the campaigns. In any case the GOP is not rejecting him or calling for a purge of small-l libertarians; after the election he’ll still have an influential role on shaping the debate within the party.
“Still influencing the campaigns?” “Shaping the debate within the party?” Really? Can you point to some actual examples of any of the presidential candidates this year changing their rhetoric to pick up any of Ron Paul’s people? Better yet, can you point to anything McCain’s added to his platform to woo those folks? Because it looks to me as if Paul’s still running, and the only reason for the man to do so – and for people to keep voting for him in the numbers they have – is to give a giant f-you to the Republican establishment.
bq. The GOP has ejected whole factions in the past–most famously the Objectivists. Under Buckley’s New Right conservativism, political philosophies tend to get either rejected or integrated as soon as they arise, and the libertarians have been integrated for some time now that the Libertarians were rejected.
Really? The libertarians have been integrated? Somebody best tell that to Jim Henley or the crowd over at Reason – they seem to feel pretty unintegrated these days. And the key characteristic of the factions the GOP ejected back in the day was that they were “factions” – Paul’s crew doesn’t really fit such a lofty title, they’re more a grass-roots uprising than anything else.
bq. This is an awful lot of insider baseball for one comment, but the short version is: the right’s disagreements with Ron Paul are not analogous to the purges of centrists happening on the left, in part because Paul is not being purged.
“Purges of centrists?” Give me a frakin’ break – calling out AL’s BS about how he’s still a true-blue liberal, despite trashing the Democrats at every turn, is not a “purge”. Joe Lieberman losing a legitimate primary election (and only hanging on to his Senate seat because he was basically adopted by the Republicans) is not a “purge”. Meanwhile there’s more than a few centrists – by any definition – in the ’06 Democratic freshman class.
And no, Ron Paul is not being purged, because he’s generally beneath the GOP’s notice, for the most part. That doesn’t mean he, his followers, or their ideas, are “accommodated” in the party the way you’re suggesting. The ultimate proof of this, of course, will be in seeing how many current Ron Paul supporters pull the lever for McCain in November, and on that front, it doesn’t look good.
bq. Chris, I’ll tell you what. I’ll work on a post on liberalism for you over the weekend…
AL, I don’t want, or need, a post from you on liberalism. You asked how you were different from liberals, I told you. Unless you’ve come up with a different answer to this than your stock replies (you’re trashing the party to make it stronger, right…) then you’re just wasting all our time.
Instead, why don’t you just answer my questions from #11? You want the Democratic party to offer you a plan for victory in Iraq, but do you have any concrete, workable ideas how to achieve that? And why is chasing after guys like you worth it, given that you’d likely alienate millions of anti-war voters in the process?
Chris, if you can’t be (your kind of) Democrat and be against an unconditional surrender in Iraq, why don’t you just say so? Successive auxiliary hoops seem to be sort of show-trial, you know?
And how many millions? Is it greater than, or less than, the millions of voters who don’t want to see the United States as a loser nation?
This is a serious question.
keep up the good work chris.
Of course, fixed identities don’t change, but it is still useful to detail out, again and again, how AL is basically FOR permanent occupation, and FOR criticizing liberals, democrats and progressives.
That’s his métier.
Still, he is, for the most part, pleasant in his disagreements, something most neo-cons are not.
Not a lot of sites would allow this type of endless- even though accurate – griping about a.l.’s heads neo-cons win tails liberals lose strategy.
Patrick Ruffini thinks that Ron Paul supporters are making good, quiet progress in the Republican Party, just through legitimate “Grassroots Organizing 101” – and he provides a lot of information to back that up. (link) Increasingly, it matters what they do, and to some extent how they think, if only because they put in the time to pass a lot of resolutions, and while that stuff can be futile, it can also add up surprisingly and have an effect later, when political winds change.
That’s evidence that genuine, serious differences of opinion can be accommodated in the Republican Party. The range of permissible opinions is wide.
Chris, I’ve never said I wanted ‘a plan for victory in Iraq’ from the Democrats; that’s your projection. I have saids that – given that the Iraq war was a strategic failure – if the Democrats came up with some plausible plan for dealing with the overall situation in the Middle east (other than ‘make the Israelis and Palestinians like each other’ through magic underwear gnomes, and ‘talk to the leaders of countries who maintain their power through fomenting anti-US hate and see what we can do to make them hate us less – hint: if they hated us less, they would lose power, so it really doesn’t matter and figuring out how to deal with a movement that is happy to act to kill Americans here and abroad with significant state support, and other than “we’ll send troops wherever we want to kill whoever we want and the leaders of those countries will welcome our actions”) it’d be really great…
…but I’ll do the liberalism post anyway.
A.L.
bq. Chris, if you can’t be (your kind of) Democrat and be against an unconditional surrender in Iraq, why don’t you just say so? Successive auxiliary hoops seem to be sort of show-trial, you know?
bq. And how many millions? Is it greater than, or less than, the millions of voters who don’t want to see the United States as a loser nation?
Mark, I’d suggest that anyone who insists on phrases like “unconditional surrender” and “loser nation” when characterizing a withdrawal from Iraq wouldn’t be terribly receptive to anything short of full-throated victory, a la McCain. That is, those guys are voting Republican anyway. Democrats will just have to content themselves, as they did in ’06, by adding the millions who’ve become disenchanted with eternal warfare to our coalition.
bq. Patrick Ruffini thinks that Ron Paul supporters are making good, quiet progress in the Republican Party, just through legitimate “Grassroots Organizing 101” – and he provides a lot of information to back that up. (link) Increasingly, it matters what they do, and to some extent how they think, if only because they put in the time to pass a lot of resolutions, and while that stuff can be futile, it can also add up surprisingly and have an effect later, when political winds change.
bq. That’s evidence that genuine, serious differences of opinion can be accommodated in the Republican Party. The range of permissible opinions is wide.
David Blue, this paragraph from the article you quote doesn’t exactly support the accommodation theory:
bq. It’s not that Ron Paul supporters are a fearsome army in raw numbers. I don’t worry about them taking over the party. They couldn’t manage 5% of the vote in most states, and are violently opposed by the other 95% when they care enough to show up.
In fact, it backs up what I’ve been saying all along: Paul’s group is small but fanatic, and they’re opposed – “*violently opposed*” – by mainstream Republicans.
bq. Chris, I’ve never said I wanted ‘a plan for victory in Iraq’ from the Democrats; that’s your projection. I have saids that – given that the Iraq war was a strategic failure – if the Democrats came up with some plausible plan for dealing with the overall situation in the Middle east (other than ‘make the Israelis and Palestinians like each other’ through magic underwear gnomes, and ‘talk to the leaders of countries who maintain their power through fomenting anti-US hate and see what we can do to make them hate us less – hint: if they hated us less, they would lose power, so it really doesn’t matter and figuring out how to deal with a movement that is happy to act to kill Americans here and abroad with significant state support, and other than “we’ll send troops wherever we want to kill whoever we want and the leaders of those countries will welcome our actions”) it’d be really great…
You’re right, AL – insofar as you’ve been agitating for a different Democratic foreign policy, you’ve been asking for more than just Iraq. (Although how you deal with the overall situation in the Middle East _without_ fixing Iraq is beyond me…)
That said, my point still stands – you don’t like what the Democrats are offering, but you _don’t have any ideas of your own to fix it_. In fact, the foreign policy goals you’ve pushed for over the past five years – the Iraq war chief among them – have been, in your own words, a “strategic failure”.
What this tells me – and, I suspect, a lot of the other liberal commenters here – is that what you’re demanding simply isn’t possible. The things that the Dems think would work – a lot of the ideas you dismiss above – aren’t acceptable to you, and the ideas that are acceptable to you have been proven not to work. This is a Venn diagram with no area of overlap, and as such, you’re basically demanding something impossible from the Democratic party.
Which makes a significant part of what you’ve been doing on these boards largely bogus.
You’re absolutely right, Chris – because I, singlehandledly, in my spare time, can’t solve the Israel-Palestine standoff, I should just hang it up and vote Republican. Or just because I can’t – singlehandledly, in my spare time, define a set of policies that would improve social justice and well-being in the US, I should flatly give up.
Hmmm. Nope, thanks.
I’ll keep calling it as I see it, and you’re welcome to do the same thing. But I will say that your schtick here is getting tiresome to me, so let me set some groundrules; start engaging me on issues and drop some of the meta- stuff (i.e. more time explaining why my policy ideas or criticisms are wrong, less time calling me out as a GOP mole) and we can have a long and interesting blog relationship.
Otherwise, not so much. There are a rotating cast of folks who seem to take up the role of “hound A.L.” – do you guys have a dispatch office? – and we’ve spent far too much time on that in the last few months.
I’m making a declaration as host that that’s officially become boring to me; I can only imagine how long ago it got boring to everyone else.
A.L.
bq. You’re absolutely right, Chris – because I, singlehandledly, in my spare time, can’t solve the Israel-Palestine standoff, I should just hang it up and vote Republican. Or just because I can’t – singlehandledly, in my spare time, define a set of policies that would improve social justice and well-being in the US, I should flatly give up.
AL, I really don’t give a damn how you, personally, vote. My point, going back to post #11, has simply been that – it seems to me – the only foreign policy ideas that will really satisfy you are basically Republican ideas (competently executed Republican ideas, maybe, but still Republican ideas). And that’s problematic for two reasons, the first being that we’ve recently seen where those ideas have led, and the second being that adopting those ideas would chase away a bunch of loyal Democrats. That being the case, your demands simply aren’t feasible for Democrats to satisfy, end of story.
bq. I’ll keep calling it as I see it, and you’re welcome to do the same thing. But I will say that your schtick here is getting tiresome to me, so let me set some groundrules; start engaging me on issues and drop some of the meta- stuff (i.e. more time explaining why my policy ideas or criticisms are wrong, less time calling me out as a GOP mole) and we can have a long and interesting blog relationship.
AL, let me call your attention to a few things. This latest bout of arguing started with you critiquing Edroso’s piece in the Village Voice. You complained that Althouse and Glenn Reynolds’ crew represented people who might vote Democratic if not for Edroso, I responded with an argument that, no, Althouse and Reynolds are _not_ particularly centrist or friendly to the Democrats, and linked to a Matt Yglesias post that rebutted your claim that the Democrats were doomed this election season.
That _was_ “engaging you on the issues”, AL, and your followup comment completely failed to address my counter-argument… which would have been the rational next step if you were, y’know, truly interested in engaging with those issues. Instead, you picked up on the part of my argument where I suggested that you were trying to paint yourself, and other Joe Lieberman-types, as a valuable and important prize for the Democrats right now – an argument that I think was completely legitimate to make, since it tied in with both the gist of your Edroso post and a theme that you yourself have identified as one of your primary concerns here at WoC.
And this is a continuing pattern between us, AL – you make some bogus statement, I reply with generally long and detailed comments that point out how the statement is bogus, and also point out that the bogusness of your statement continues to reflect the dubious of your core blogging themes. And then you ignore the detailed argument I’ve made, and retreat to defending your core themes by _insisting_ they’re really valid and important, and not engaging with the detailed minutiae that should illustrate by example _why_ your themes are valid and important.
So, long story short, AL, if you want to argue about the issues then you should damn well _argue about the issues with me_, because if you’re a player in this game too, and you just about always lead us back to this bit of the playing field.
bq. I’m making a declaration as host that that’s officially become boring to me; I can only imagine how long ago it got boring to everyone else.
Fine. So, about Ann Althouse, care to explain _why_ “Boobgate” was not complete stupidity on her part? Or maybe address Edroso’s fairly detailed examples of _how_ her actions belie her “moderate” label? Or are we just gonna continue with _your_ meta stuff, about how evil and awful liberals are for not jumping through hoops to satisfy anyone and everyone who pretends to be a centrist?
At what point do I get to throw my hands up and despair of hearing a logical argument in response to my comments? Just wondering, cause this is getting old.
bq. This is what we in the reality-based community like to call a “lie”, Unbeliever. Bush held overwhelming majority of support among Republicans until well after the 2006 elections.
In case you missed the meaning of the phrase “mid-term elections”, recall that Bush was _not_ on the ballot in 2006; _Congress_ was. Despite what the incorrectly named reality-based community would have you believe, 2006 was _not_ a referendum on Bush, no matter how much they tried to make it one; it was a referendum on Congress. And it was repeatedly noted during the 2006 election cycle that Bush’s numbers were way better than Congress’ approval numbers, which hovered around 13% or so.
I’ll go out on a limb and submit your argument as further proof you have no idea what actually goes on across the aisle from you, because all throughout 2006 conservative blocs were railing about the spend-happy Congress. The elites alternated between calling for everyone to stay home and protest the GOP’s poor record, or begging everyone to come out and vote anyways despite the party’s ideological letdown. There was a flood of articles going on about the betrayal of the 1994 Contract with America, and there was a serious debate over whether the voters should intentionally throw the election for the GOP and force them to “wander in the wilderness” for a few years.
In short, your response doesn’t even begin to answer the flaws I pointed out in your previous arguments.
bq. Better yet, can you point to anything McCain’s added to his platform to woo those folks?
Do I really need to explain why the centrist McCain platform is very careful _not_ to include anything from the far right ideological factions?
bq. Because it looks to me as if Paul’s still running, and the only reason for the man to do so – and for people to keep voting for him in the numbers they have – is to give a giant f-you to the Republican establishment.
Well then, lucky for the GOP that reality doesn’t mirror how _you_ see things. There are two forces at play that you seem to forget:
1) Ron Paul is still running on the GOP ticket, but that all gets shut down once the convention happens. As soon as the general election cycle officially kicks off, either Paul’s supporters will pitch in behind McCain (with their votes, not necessarily cash or volunteering), or they’ll sit out. Either way, as an ideologue, it makes a lot of sense for Paul to keep running until the convention because at that point McCain will be forced to offer some concessions to his supporters.
2) Paul’s numbers are around 5% or lower, which comes out to about 1.8% of the total likely voting population in 2008. That’s enough to be concerned about, but odds are including many of their specific policies into the broader platform will lose more than their 2% vote. And in order to keep those voters happy, it makes more sense to let their candidate stay in as long as he can, rather than trying to co-opt him out of the race earlier than the convention.
Seriously, this is all basic party politics. The scenario has played out many times before with different players, on both sides of the aisle. If all this is news to you, I suggest you wait a few more election cycles before trying your hand at analysis again.
David_Blue helpfully got the argument back to my main point which you found so objectionable, mainly that Ron Paul’s campaign is
bq. evidence that genuine, serious differences of opinion can be accommodated in the Republican Party. The range of permissible opinions is wide.
The GOP is not trying to kick him out, and his libertarian views–not his *L*ibertarian ones, the distinction is not trivial–were given air time both during the GOP debates and in the broader narrative with both the rank-and-file and the elite.
Furthermore, I object to AJL’s post “#30”:http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/doin_that_concern_troll_rag.php#c30 . There is no such thing as a “Shorter Unbeliever” comment; as evidenced above, I am _always_ long-winded.
bq. At what point do I get to throw my hands up and despair of hearing a logical argument in response to my comments? Just wondering, cause this is getting old.
If it’s all the same to you, Unbeliever, I’d just as soon mostly stick to knocking down your points one by one, but if you insist on including point blank assertions that the other side is _obviously_ wrong, stupid, uninformed, irrational, etc., then just let me know and I can fit those in too.
bq. In case you missed the meaning of the phrase “mid-term elections”, recall that Bush was not on the ballot in 2006; Congress was. Despite what the incorrectly named reality-based community would have you believe, 2006 was not a referendum on Bush, no matter how much they tried to make it one; it was a referendum on Congress. And it was repeatedly noted during the 2006 election cycle that Bush’s numbers were way better than Congress’ approval numbers, which hovered around 13% or so.
Two things, Unbeliever. First is that it’s complete BS that the mid-terms weren’t a referendum on Bush. Bush and the pre-’06 Republican Congress were effectively one entity, as tons of commenters pointed out, and as can be seen by the simple fact that Bush almost never vetoed a damn thing that came across his desk back then – he never had to. There wasn’t a hair’s worth of difference between Bush and the previous Congress on almost any issue you can name – “spend-happy Congress”? Were you somehow under the impression Bush wasn’t bang behind most of that spending?. And while Congress’s approval was lower than Bush’s, it wasn’t by much – you’re cherry picking an outlier poll there. Most Congressional approval polls before the mid-terms put Bush in the mid- to low 30s and Congress in the high-to-mid 20’s.
Second, it’s not the case that Republicans were supporting Bush, but not Congress, as can be seen in the results for question 2 here (PDF). Republicans were supporting Congress as much as ever – it’s the independents overwhelmingly turning to Democrats that sunk the Republicans in 2006.
bq. I’ll go out on a limb and submit your argument as further proof you have no idea what actually goes on across the aisle from you, because all throughout 2006 conservative blocs were railing about the spend-happy Congress. The elites alternated between calling for everyone to stay home and protest the GOP’s poor record, or begging everyone to come out and vote anyways despite the party’s ideological letdown. There was a flood of articles going on about the betrayal of the 1994 Contract with America, and there was a serious debate over whether the voters should intentionally throw the election for the GOP and force them to “wander in the wilderness” for a few years.
I sure as hell remember everyone from Rush to Hugh Hewitt assuring us that a Democratic victory would assure an al Qeada attack on US soil, and while I saw a few Corner posts wondering if it _might_ be good for the Republicans to lose, I saw far more people countering that _of course_ it was better for the Republicans to win. But if you want to actually, y’know, provide some _links_ showing the Republican elites denouncing their own Congress _before_ the election, that’d just be super.
bq. Do I really need to explain why the centrist McCain platform is very careful not to include anything from the far right ideological factions?
So, the earlier “shaping the debate” you spoke of consists of… what, exactly, if none of this ends up in the party platform?
bq. 1) Ron Paul is still running on the GOP ticket, but that all gets shut down once the convention happens. As soon as the general election cycle officially kicks off, either Paul’s supporters will pitch in behind McCain (with their votes, not necessarily cash or volunteering), or they’ll sit out. Either way, as an ideologue, it makes a lot of sense for Paul to keep running until the convention because at that point McCain will be forced to offer some concessions to his supporters.
Again, take a look at the link I posted in #46, which states that the Paul folks are _not_ pitching in – or voting – for McCain, come November. This is not evidence of a group that feels they’re being “accommodated” by the rest of the GOP.
bq. 2) Paul’s numbers are around 5% or lower, which comes out to about 1.8% of the total likely voting population in 2008. That’s enough to be concerned about, but odds are including many of their specific policies into the broader platform will lose more than their 2% vote. And in order to keep those voters happy, it makes more sense to let their candidate stay in as long as he can, rather than trying to co-opt him out of the race earlier than the convention.
And what possible leverage do you think mainstream Republicans have to “co-opt” Paul out of the race in the first place? Paul’s not in the race because they’re _letting_ him, he’s in the race because they can’t shut him up.
bq. David_Blue helpfully got the argument back to my main point which you found so objectionable, mainly that Ron Paul’s campaign is “evidence that genuine, serious differences of opinion can be accommodated in the Republican Party. The range of permissible opinions is wide.”
And if you’d like to respond to my earlier post to David Blue, pointing out that _his own article_ states Paul’s people are “violently opposed”, that’d likewise be terrific.
OK, Chris, here’re some fast answers. First, here’s the question, as I understand it:
“What foreign policy, specifically, does AL want from the Democrats?”
I obviously don’t have on in a can, but I do have some criteria for judging it.
1. Does it accept the notion that we have real enemies – both in non-state and state actors, who are not likely to ‘feel better about us’ because their material and ideological interests may actually oppose ours?
2. Does it accept that – as a matter of general principle – our foreign policy ought to be about serving our national interest – which may include ideological or moral interests as well as material ones?
3. Does it have some plausible path through the problem I outlined in “March 2003”:http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/on_being_a_liberal_hawk.php :
4. Is it plausible? Bill Clinton’s and John Kerry’s notion that we’d just drop special forces operators anywhere in the world where they are bad guys fails both the material plausibility test (ask someone who really plans those missions why) and the political plausibility test (when they find the first dead US operator on the ground in, say Georgia or Jordan – what do you think the NYT headline will be? What will they be discussing in the UN building?)
That’d be a good start. It doesn’t have to involve war; we could have a plausible energy plan that cuts off imports from the ME; we could open a cultural front; there are a variety of things that it might include in a coherent narrative.
So far, it hasn’t.
And to that, I’ll add the complexity of what to do about Iraq.
Now I consider Iraq a strategic failure for all the reasons I’ve given to date. But it very well could be a tactical success – yes, I do think we could win a counterinsurgency in Iraq. I think we won the counterinsurgency war in Vietnam – we lost the conventional war.
So absent another, better plan, I’ll take that one. I’m actively hoping for a better plan, trust me. For all kinds of reasons, personal through political. But the simple rejection of Bush’s plan is not itself a plan that accomplishes much in the national interest, and as such, I flatly reject it.
More later.
A.L.
Hey, Andrew (#26 et seq) – why don’t you take a look at the Betz paper “I link to above”:http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/read_this.php – here’s a quote that’s kind of material:
Not just idiots believe this, I’m afraid…
A.L.
Too late tonight, AL. And too much wine. I’ll try to check in tomorrow, and I’ll probably start from the unsurprising discovery that the pro-war view has been disseminated by purportedly-neutral analysts with financial incentives.
bq. I obviously don’t have [a preferred foreign policy] in a can, but I do have some criteria for judging it.
And, as I’ve said in the past, I don’t think there’s a _workable_ foreign policy the Democrats can propose that’ll not only meet your criteria, but meet the strangely differing standards you hold Republicans and Democrats to when judging them. But let’s take a look at those criteria…
bq. 1. Does it accept the notion that we have real enemies – both in non-state and state actors, who are not likely to ‘feel better about us’ because their material and ideological interests may actually oppose ours?
Got any actual evidence that either Clinton or Obama _don’t_ believe we have “real enemies”? You’re edging pretty close to Jim Rockford “All Democrats are in Code Pink/ANSWER” territory here, AL, and it’s insulting.
2. Does it accept that – as a matter of general principle – our foreign policy ought to be about serving our national interest – which may include ideological or moral interests as well as material ones?
See above. Although it’s also worth pointing out that “ideological or moral interests” isn’t, and shouldn’t be, a blank check for endless war in support of purple fingers.
bq. 3. Does it have some plausible path through the problem I outlined in March 2003…
To be fair, you’re far from the _only_ person outlining those problems, AL. And no, the Democrats don’t have a magic wand to fix all those issues, but I’ll suggest that the increase in renewable energy research both Democrats have suggested, coupled with the fact that neither candidate would have the ties “Bandar Bush” does to Saudi Arabia, would be fairly significant steps forwards in getting us out of bed with corrupt regimes.
bq. 4. Is it plausible? Bill Clinton’s and John Kerry’s notion that we’d just drop special forces operators anywhere in the world where they are bad guys fails both the material plausibility test (ask someone who really plans those missions why) and the political plausibility test (when they find the first dead US operator on the ground in, say Georgia or Jordan – what do you think the NYT headline will be? What will they be discussing in the UN building?)
We’ve tangled on the issue of special forces before – suffice to say, while their use is not trivial, you’ve utterly failed to prove they _cannot_ be effectively used, from a practical standpoint, to combat terrorist organizations.
And as far as the “political plausibility test”, this is a perfect example of what I was talking about earlier, in regard to your differing standards for Bush and the Democrats. In what *possible alternate universe* would there be _more_ diplomatic and political blowback from a botched covert mission than we’ve seen from the frakking _Iraq war_? (Not to mention the fact the Iraq war has not been carried out _instead of_ those kinds of covert ops, but _in addition to_. Have you completely forgotten about some of the “extraordinary rendition” stuff that’s blown up in Bush’s face, or what?)
I mean, good lord, AL, if you’re so bloody concerned with what the NYT and/or UN things, what on earth are you doing supporting the policies you are?
bq. So absent another, better plan, I’ll take that one. I’m actively hoping for a better plan, trust me. For all kinds of reasons, personal through political. But the simple rejection of Bush’s plan is not itself a plan that accomplishes much in the national interest, and as such, I flatly reject it.
Short answer, AL: “First, stop digging.” Getting our priorities straight in Iraq doesn’t fix everything, but it does stop exacerbating a lot of the problems you’re nominally concerned with. Ditto ending the countries policies on torture, our current diplomatic stance which is basically an “up yours” to the rest of the world, and refocusing our attention on the real, no-kidding al Qeada and OBL. Even if they’re merely symptomatic of a deeper problem, they’re the symptoms that are by far the most dangerous to us at the moment.
And all that said, I repeat my earlier observation from #11 – you don’t know what you want, you just know you don’t like what the Democrats are proposing. The Democrats are simply not going to adopt Bush’s policies, for reasons both practical and political, but that’s effectively the only alternative you’re presenting them with. And as such, most of your commentary on this is demanding the impossible, and as such, is pretty much meaningless.