Pundits from Dick Morris to MK (that’s Mickey Kaus, not Member of Knesset) are sucking their political thumbs today about why the new Donkey-in-Chief got no-to-negligible bounce from his convention. The curiously silent Voices of Experience (mainstream media) are ascribing this… when they’re talking… to the CW that the electorate is already polarized, but the aforesaid gentlemen aren’t buying… as well they shouldn’t.
The Mickster sez Kerry did a good enough job for him and opines: If even Kerry’s best didn’t help him much, what’s a Democrat to do? … Hint: Rhymes with “Titanic.”
And “Le Roi of Realpolitik” himself… Morris… says: Voters don’t want a lieutenant for president. They want a commander-in-chief.
The heart of the problem seems to have been Kerry’s obsession with Vietnam to the exclusion of anything else (after Clinton, Obama, et al had pointed the way back to domestic issues, usually favorable to Democrats). This blog, as some will recall, (warning: back-patting) was not impressed with Kerry’s speech or his bland war movie, but Catherine Johnson, writing in the comments here, had what I think is the most original explanation for the “no bounce.” As she reiterated to me today in email:
The one thing I haven’t seen anywhere, though, and that makes me wish I were a political writer, is the fact that Kerry chose to spend an entire speech associating himself with a military defeat.
Military defeats are horrifically traumatic for countries and peoples, and no one has picked up on this.
I think she’s spot on. And on top of this Kerry is confusing the electorate. How are they supposed to react to a man who is endlessly trumpeting his heroism in a war that he thought we never should have fought even before he volunteered for it? No matter how you stand on Vietnam, that’s puzzling. And as the linchpin of a presidential campaign in 2004, it’s absurd.
“Military defeats are horrifically traumatic for countries and peoples, and no one has picked up on this.”
What defeat? The Left won their war.
What defeat? The Left won their war.
Yep, and got Nixon elected too. Always did wonder about the left’s claims of victory. I still run into folks who reminisce about their great “success.” Of course, the US did abandon Vietnam, but I think the rise of the new Republican party also dates from the same period.
Your chronology is off. We didn’t lose in Vietnam until around 1976. Nixon was out of the White House in, what, 1974. After Vietnam went under, Carter won, and he perfectly embodied the anti-American strain of foreign policy thinking that cost us Vietnam. The Republican Party began its return to power in 1980, with Ronald Reagan.
So, yeah, the Left won their war, but couldn’t consolidate their victory under Carter.
I have come to the conclusion that the reason Kerry did not receive a bounce is because he has already captured the bounce vote. Since their November 2002 defeat the Democrats went on a relentless campaign of lies and disinformation to discredit the Bush Adminstration. They have used Joe Wilson, no WMD, Richard Clarke, no heaven on earth in Iraq etc., as a means of destroying Bush’s credibility to a point where he is no longer trusted by a near majority of the voting population. None of the reports coming out here or in the UK have made a dent in this perception. I am a pessimist. The MSM aided Democratic party has done their work well. John Kerry will win the election. I hope I eat my words come November but I fear not.
I don’t think it’s all that simple. In Iraq we are clearly fighting for democracy. The leaders of South Vietnam were far from democrats. Big difference. The war now is more justified. But that makes me agree with Mr. Simon even more. Making Vietnam the cetner of a campaign is “absurd,” as he says.
The Bush campaign needs to find way to ask this question:
Why did you go to Vietnam even when you opposed the war? Was it..
A) Because you felt an obligation to serve your country, or…
B) Because you thought it would help you as a politician.
Now, we all know what Kerry would answer, but I’ll bet a fair number of voters could guess the truth.
Why is this important, and not mere sniping? Because I think it points to the reason I cannot vote for the man. He is an elitist, narcissistic, self aggrandizing opportunist who is constitutionally uncapable of serving anyone but himself.
Roger—golly, thank you for the mention.
If you don’t mind a quick clarification, Kerry didn’t precisely volunteer for the war (commenters–right?)
My understanding is that he applied to his draft board for a deferment because he wanted to study in Paris (!) and was turned down.
At that point he enlisted in the Navy.
Let me move beyond the history of the Vietnam War. Kerry’s convention ploy was to be a credible military leader in the eyes of middle America. To attain that, he expended an enormous amount of TV time and exposure. Whether he achieved it is uncertain at this point. We are in a wait see mode. Frankly, I do not think he can out-gun the president who is fixed in the minds of Americans as decisive focused leader who has revolutionized American foreign policy. Do the American people want and accept that change is, to me, the focus of this election.
Catherine,
You’ve got it regarding his “call to duty”. Lt. Kerry has once again reported for duty and specifically asked us all to “look at my record”. Now if he’d just okay the release of the complete record, I’d sure be happy to do that. We really need to know who initiated the paperwork on the ribbons he so gallantly tossed over the fence. I’d like to know how many others of his band of brothers were written up in the same time period. It appears that he garnered five citations in 30 days. A really rather remarkable achievement, so remarkable in fact that it almost defies belief.
Kerry is politically tone deaf. Were it not so he might have noticed that his chief political advisor has been associated with seven unsuccessful presidential campaigns. This will make it eight.
My sense of the polling data is that it’s not just that Kerry didn’t get a bounce; he actually lost support. Some pollsters are calling it a “negative bounce.”
This interpretation is contested, obviously, and it’s true that, as Kaus points out, Kerry gained on “internal polling” points.
But it’s definitely what you see happening in the Iowa Electronic Markets. As soon as Edwards speaks, Bush starts pulling ahead, and he pulls further ahead after Kerry’s speech.
It’s one thing for Kerry not to get a bounce because so many voters have made up their minds.
It’s quite another for George Bush to get a bounce from the Democratic Party’s convention. (Assuming he did.)
Has that ever happened?
Did it happen in ’72? (1972 is the only Democratic convention that did not produce a bounce for the candidate.)
One other repetition from an earlier thread: I haven’t read all of Oxblog’s coverage yet, but Patrick Belton’s take on the convention was that it consistently linked Iraq with Vietnam, and Kerry with Bobby Kennedy, “speaking truth to power.”
I watched only the Kerry film & speech, so I have no impression of the rest of the evening.
But if Belton is right, political writers missed another critically important point, which is that the convention wasn’t about “patriotism” and “strength,” it was about protesting American wars.
If Belton (& the person sitting next to him at the convention) got that message, other Americans had to have heard & seen the same thing.
Did Kerry manage to McGovernize himself?
I think Catherine is absolutely right. I also think that Dick Morris alludes unintentionally to another problem when he says at the end of his column that “Voters want a president with brains, not just guts”. I don’t question John Kerry’s intelligence. I think that he’s a fool, but that’s a different thing. I don’t think, however, that he has any “guts” whatsoever. He won’t take a solid position on much of anything except that he deserves to be President.
I was thinking that MK was Mickey Klutts, second baseman for the Yankees, Athletics, and Blue Jays from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, and possessor of one of the great basebasll names.
And isn’t it “linchpin” (one word, two i’s, no y’s), rather than “lynch pin”?
I haven’t really bothered to try to figure out why Kerry talked about “what I did in the war” as I’m of the view that it didn’t matter what he talked about. I’ll admit to being mistaken if the tracking polls show any significant move toward Bush in the aftermath of the Republican National Convention.
It’s too early to “think” that either candidate will win. What they’re doing suggests that both campaigns expect a close contest that will narrow down to a battle over the elctoral votes of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and fewer than five of the small states.
91 days to go.
By the way, Rasmussen just reported that in their polling Kerry now leads Bush by 55% to 37% in California. I’m not surprised.
Rick B
Ditto, ditto, ditto.
Kerry is politically tone deaf. Were it not so he might have noticed that his chief political advisor has been associated with seven unsuccessful presidential campaigns. This will make it eight.
You know, I just can’t “grok” this.
Today’s Drudge, in bright red lettering, has Kerry thanking Bush for “calling out the goons,” while his wife shouts, “four more years of hell.”
How does this happen?
What part of Kerry’s mind tells him “goons” is a good word to use in a presidential campaign?
And Shrum.
Why is Shrum running things?
I have to say that I look at the Democratic Party, and I’m just staggered by the whole thing.
They just seem to make such elementary, not to mention elemental mistakes.
I understand John Kerry being tone-deaf, but I don’t understand a whole party being so off-key.
While I agree with DtP that the Dems faced almost insurmountable challenges this time around, I just can’t see that this was the best they could do.
They needed some present-day soldiers, policemen, & firemen up there on stage with Kerry. Not just the “Band of Brothers.”
They needed to thank our current-day servicemen and first responsders for winning the wars & keeping us safe.
TimJUtah
What defeat? The Left won their war.
Actually, I’ve stopped believing this since reading the flap jacket copy for H.R. McMaster’s Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam, which was written by a soldier and is apparently required reading for the Joint Chiefs. (In other words, this is an “insider’s” book, not an outsider assault on the military.)
This is from the jacket (I hope i get around to reading the book itself soon):
“The war in Vietnam was not lost in the field, nor was it lost on the front pages of the New York Times or the college campuses. It was lost in Washington, D.C.”
I no longer believe that the MSM has the power to lose a war.
“It’s too early to “think” that either candidate will win. What they’re doing suggests that both campaigns expect a close contest that will narrow down to a battle over the elctoral votes of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and fewer than five of the small states”–Goof
Good analysis.That is almost exactly what is happening.I recall reading some time ago that the Republicans had been spending quite a lot of money on sophisticated ‘grass-roots’structures designed to identify,motivate,and energise their likely voters so as to get them out to vote in November.
This will in all probability come down to a ‘ground game’in November and will be close.However if it does get down to the best internal structures, I have a feeling that GWB is better positioned.
I agree that it’s a terrible mistake for Kerry to continue to focus on Vietnam. But he’s in a bad position politically.
On the one hand, the activist Democrats want Kerry to be McGovern. They see McGovern as a good thing. War is baaaaaad, don’t you know. Remember, the Central Lesson of Vietnam, for many who lived through that era, is that, by merely withdrawing from the fight, our enemies will stop killing us and everything will be fine. That’s the ghost traipsing through the minds of those Democrats.
On the other hand, “red-state” America wants somebody who is going to be a strong military leader in time of war. What you have just witnessed then is a blatant and rather clumsy attempt by the Democrats to pull the wool over the “red-state” voters’ eyes. The leading Democrats really believe this nonsense: they went to the best schools, they live in the best apartments in Manhattan and Beacon Hill, they know the best people like Barbra Streisand, and therefore those hicks out in the sticks are really stupid and have been hoodwinked by the Republicans and by that moronic Machiavellian genius, W, ergo all that is required is to hoodwink the voters back into the Democratic fold. That’s what the convention was about, in a nutshell. It’s not really that complicated, to wit, “I’m a big strong military man you stupid stupid Republicans (wink, wink, nudge, nudge, you savvy Democrats–you all know I’m really McGovern and we’ll fool the stupid Republicans)”.
I don’t think it’s going to work. My impression in the last few days is that support for Kerry has weakened among the Democrats and no Republican would give him the time of day.
Roger:
Kerry’s whole political worldview is stuck in Vietnam.That is why despite his protests that he won’t cut and run he will. By stating that he will get the troops out before his first term is over shows that he is looking to split no matter what the facts on the ground show.Clinton said we would be out of the Balkans in a year yet we are still there. Bush was not a fan of the war yet he has not yanked us out because he knows that it would be irresponsible to do it.Kerry has no qualms about it. Her will construct a patchwork UN coalition and book. Allawi will be left to the tender mercies of the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran.
The most ironic aspect of Kerry’s Vietnam syndrome is that he is adopting Nixon’s secret plan for peace strategy. He basically says . “Look at my foreign policy record, trust me, I have a plan but I can’t give you any of the details, just trust” OK, I looked. You negotiated with the Noth Vietnamese and sold out the south. You picked the “nuclear freeze” as your way of dealing with the Soviet Union and you fought Reagans methods that produced a stunning victory. If we had followed your lead Ortega would be the vozhd of Nicaragua and Saddam would still be stealing “oil for food” money to build palaces and who knows what else.Give a madman 10 to 20 billion to play with and the possibilities are endless.There is a reason why Kerry spent more time focusing on his 4 months in Vietnam during the convention and almost nothing on his Senate foreign policy record.He says he wants you to check it out but he is praying to God that you don’t take him up on his challenge.
I have the same thoughts as Chuck. While today’s anti-war movement has not matched the violence of the 60′s and 70′s, the same ferocious radicalism still exists today in the anti-WOT groups.
The anti-war movement had traction in the Viet Nam era simply because Viet Nam had never attacked the USA. In the 60′s and 70′s, resonable people could differ as to whether we should have been there because of this factor.
The same doesn’t hold true today because we were attacked on 9/11. People can argue in good faith over whether Iraq was necessary and other strategies concerning the WOT. But most folks understand we have a real enemy that has to be dealt with. For many on the far Left, the WOT is really our own fault, or a Republican fabrication/plot to unleash the forces of darkness on our country. This radicalism divorced from reality has to be unsettling for many middle-of-the-road voters. As this emanates from the Left, any electorial liability accrues to the Democrats as the party of the Left.
WichitaBoy
I think you’re right, of course, and it may simply have been a hopeless undertaking . . . but when you say the convention was a “clumsy” attempt to pull the wool over red-staters’ eyes, I keep thinking: wasn’t there a graceful attempt that could have been made?
The irony for me is that the convention was brilliantly successful at pulling the wool over conservative pundits’ eyes. All of them thought Kerry had pulled it off . . . which gives me pause about just how non-elitist our “conservative elites” are!
(That’s not quite fair, because conservative pundits really did love the Vietnam footage. They assumed everyone would respond the way they did . . . )
RandMan
As this emanates from the Left, any electorial liability accrues to the Democrats as the party of the Left
I believe that.
Many of you seem to understand polling a whole lot better than I do. I’m in the “there are lies, damn lies, statistics and those god-forsaken polls!” camp when it comes to escalating untruths.
Now, that off my chest, what, exactly are these “internal polling” data? When I look at the questions or the presentation of this “internal” stuff what I see are questions that attempt to figure out how people arrived at the one answer that is important. These are the “what’s you rationale?” questions.
This sort of question, it seems to me, might mean something for we “decideds”. The “undecideds”, however, are only now beginning to even pay attention and they are generally pondering the most recently made points. They are in, “Hmmm… that seems about right to me… I care about that stuff” mode at the moment.
Over time they will be presented not only with, hopefully, valid alternate points which will put them back into “Hmmm… that’s seems about right to me…” and they will be subject to counter arguments that call their first assumptions into question.
The undecideds, no matter what they say when polled at a given point in time, have the primary attribute of being undecided. They are open to the arguments and being “sold”. Kerry may have some thinking about buying, but they ain’t plunked no cold, hard-earned cash down yet and they haven’t heard the other pitch yet.
All in all, the hand-wringing either way at this point seems more intended to keep eyes glued to the tube than to ‘splain anything.
Oh, yeah, and that stinker Catherine has hit yet another nail dead center with a sledgehammer. My only consolation is that any noggin that sucks in information that quickly must have recently been a vacuum. (Just funnin’ Catherine! I am envous but its a good envy – I think we call that admiration or somesuch.)
Catherine -
The Best And Brightest thought their good intentions would trump two thousand years of recorded history and almost two hundred years of U.S. war fighting experience, and they were wrong.
The core of the antiwar movement began as responsible citizens and politicians that questioned why were bleeding without a plan to win. That was a valid question but it was rapidly hijacked by people who thought that we were no better than the communists and were comfortable portraying the little brown brothers as freedom fighters. The rise of the McGovern Democrats coincided with the Left’s explosion through campuses and the media and the meme of U.S. power = danger became established.
The Nixon exit policy was enacted after Creighton Abrams had reestablished local security to almost every population center in the South and eliminated the NVA south of the DMZ. Status quo 1972 was a South Vietnam willing and capable of defending itself, given logistical support. Our troops came home but the continuing successful defense by South Vietnam was inconvenient to the Left, desperate to remove any doubt of the defeat we had suffered…so they abandoned them during Ford’s administration and the North occupied in 1975.
Tet destroyed the VC infrastructure in 1968 but was portrayed as a defeat by The Most Trusted Man in America and countless other news readers. Abrams abandoned Westmoreland’s Hearts and Minds strategy and concentrated on locating and killing the enemy and training up ARVN units to the point they were actually worth the food they ate. When Nixon got around to mining harbors and bombing bridges, the peace talks were concluded less than a year later. By the time the battle on the ground was won the war at home was irretrievably lost.
Without sanctuaries and arbitrary limits on the application of our power the North Vietnamese would never have been able to get enough power into the South to destabilize it – or to inflict the fifty thousand dead we suffered. General Giap credited the antiwar movement with winning the war. That’s good enough for me.
Catherine
I keep thinking: wasn’t there a graceful attempt that could have been made?
It’s an interesting question. I was discussing this very thing last night with my (Democratic) son, in the context of Lincoln’s problems with Fremont, when he was caught between the abolishionists and the Union-loyal slaveholders in the last tier of border states. Lincoln’s response was superb, and it’s clear that his outstanding political skills were necessary for the preservation of the Union. Few people could master the Democrats’ current dilemma, probably not including Kerry.
As I see it, the problem with Kerry is Kerry. The way the message sounds to me is: “Vote for me, I’m a big strong anti-American war protester. (Did I say that out loud? Who turned the microphone on?!? I don’t turn microphones on!! I don’t fall, he pushed me!!!)”
It’s a pretty tough sell.
To put it plainly, Kerry is and will be perceived as not having a whole lot of faith in America.
This isn’t something that’s going to be gleaned precisely from any poll. But without it he isn’t going to be elected.
What impressed me about the convention was how phony it was. It was so obviously phony to everyone and they all said it was phony. “See, I am smiling, George Bush — never heard of him — I am smiling, I am such a phony.” I think it dis-spirited Democrats, annoyed independents and enraged Republicans.
Just my theory.
I think they’re manipulating the polls right now like there’s no tomorrow. For instance, Monday’s ABC poll has Kerry leading Bush 49 to 47 among likely voters (with Nader getting 2). However when you look at the breakdown of the party affiliation of those interviewed, it’s 39% Democrats, 29% Republicans and 21% independents. They’ve obviously so weighted their polling to favor Kerry that it has become meaningless.
Having said that, I do think it will be a very close election, unless there’s an underground shift going on that the polls aren’t picking up on, which is definitely possible. I remember one gubernatorial election here in California in the ’80s between Dukmegian (sp?) and the Democratic candidate Tom Bradley, the African American mayor of LA. In the polls leading up to the election Bradley was leading by double didgits, and even the exit polling showed him winning handily. But when the votes were actually counted it was a solid victory for Dukmegian. Everyone was at a loss to explain how the polls could have been so far off. My own theory was that people had simply lied to the pollsters, because they were afraid if they said they weren’t voting for Bradley they would be perceived as racist, even through in most cases race had nothing to do with their choice. And, since it was easier to lie than to justify their vote, they lied. Or rather enough lied that it threw off the polls.
On the other hand, if there is a terrorist attack this fall, all bets are off.
Catherine,
You won’t want to miss the article on Shrum in the latest print issue of The New Republic.
As for TNR and Kerry and Bush … well, I’ve already said all I have to say about that.
I think the tone-deafness of the Democrats is a reflection of the fact that they are operating in a big echo-chamber. Democrats (even political operatives) tend to associate only with others of their kind, and to reinforce each others’ position.
As a former Democrat myself, I know whereof I speak. I almost never had a social encounter in which someone disagreed with me politically. I wasn’t purposely avoiding non-Democrats; it was just the way it was, and I was unaware of it at the time. I only became aware of it after I started to think differently from the group. It was then, and only then, that I noticed the virtual unanimity of opinion among my acquaintances, friends, and relatives.
Even Democratic politicians, who should know better, probably only interact with others of their kind, so they are always preaching to the choir. So I think they lose sight of what appeals to the independents and undecideds.
That said, I think Kerry’s tone-deafness about politics and people comes from a different source: he actually is clueless about these things. I am struck by how the man so totally lacks an inner core. He is constitutionally and psychologically incapable of taking a stand, so one wonders why he even wants to become president, and I can only imagine that desire comes from his tremendous narcissism.
He can take the advice of advisors, but nothing, NOTHING, can hide the fact that, every time he opens his mouth, he emanates a sort of smarmy indecisiveness coupled with an off-putting arrogance. His Vietnam record is a perfect example of his back-and-forthness: against the war initially; enlists only because otherwise he’d be drafted; makes the most of every scratch he gets while serving there; arranges an early departure; in order to make himself a public figure, testifies against what he and his fellow-servicement did there; throws his medals over a fence but actually they are someone else’s medals; spends his nomination speech talking about events of 30 years ago which he had previously criticized, i.e. his Vietnam service–one could go on and on, but what’s the use? Every time he opens his mouth he has to negate what he just said. He can’t help himself, it’s his nature. So he is positioned to be the perfect Anybody But Bush candidate. He really has no positive characteristics of his own, so he is the perfect negation candidate.
Tacitus made a good point about Kerry’s failure to connect. Kerry didn’t want to offend the middle, but he felt the need to play to the base, so he put coded references to things the base would get–”I will appoint an Attorney General who actually upholds the Constitution of the United States.”–without turning off the middle. The problem was that it just left the middle wondering what in the world he was talking about.
Plus, I don’t think you can overstate the fact that nobody likes Kerry. They support him because they think he can beat Bush.
penwil
Bradley narrowly lost to Deukmejian in 1982 because there was a gun control measure on the ballot and Bradley endorsed it late in the campaign. Turnout was nearly 70%. By comparison, turnout for last year’s recall was a little over 61%. The gun control measure was soundly defeated.
blogaddict:
Kerry’s problem is that he and his wife are both clones of the Helmsley woman (can’t remember her first name)…you know paying taxes is for little people. They are classic Eurotrash elite. During a campaign appearance in Chicago earlier this year Teressa caused a stir by remarking that “you know, I could live here.” The set off bipartisan howls of laughter among the city dwellers. Teressa obviously didn’t understand the Chicagoan view Pittsburg and even Boston as being unpleasent little cities of little consequence.
Blogaddict–
What was it Pauline Kael said after Nixon was elected in a landslide? “How could that be? I don’t know a single person who voted for him.”
It simply can’t be said enough: The mainstream media has not a clue what the average American thinks.
hi Knucklehead
I’ve sucked in virtually all of my “knowledge” of polls from Samuel, who I think was posting here before you joined (yes?) He’s amazing.
I used the phrase “internal polling data” earlier, which I picked up only this morning from Mickey Kaus.
I think it means the “smaller” items, like “who do you trust to lead the country”—those things. But I could be wrong.
Samuel always said that the two key items in presidential election polls are:
Leadership
Right track/wrong track
Bush wins in a landslide on leadership (that’s probably an exaggeration) but he’s in big trouble on right track/wrong track. Huge numbers of Americans say we’re on the wrong track, and the figure doesn’t seem to budge (actually, I think it improved a bit in July, maybe).
Samuel says people vote on leadership.
I believe him, partly because he knows what he’s talking about, but partly also because I’ve noticed polling shifts & campaign strategies that confirm this view.
As far as I can tell, a lot of the campaign so far has been fought over the issue of leadership. That’s what the “flip-flop” campaign against Kerry was about, as well as Bush’s campaign theme of “steady leadership in a time of challenge.” The folks over at NRO (some of them) hated “steady leadership,” from which I conclude that the Bushies didn’t pick that slogan because conservative pundits thought it was a great thing. They picked it because they understand that the American public votes on leadership.
For his part, Kerry is trying to present himself as a strong leader. So I think Samuel is right.
The other huge factor, apparently, is job approval. Everyone universally seems to say that all elections in which a sitting president is running for a second term are a “referendum on the president.”
If the incumbent’s job approval is above 50%, that’s it, end of story. He wins. Doesn’t matter how fantastic the challenger is or isn’t. (At least, that’s what I’ve read in literally every article I’ve ever seen on the subject.)
That’s another nailbiting area for Bush, because his approval ratings have been below 50% for quite some time now–although they inched back up to 50% in at least a couple of polls going into the convention.
A couple of other fascinating things.
Fred Barnes has a terrific piece in THE WEEKLY STANDARD saying the Bushies concluded long ago that they could not run a “four more years” campaign, as you would (probably) expect a sitting president to do.
Instead he is going to “pivot,” and come out with new programs & new directions.
That sounds great to me, and I’m guessing the White House is responding to the right track/wrong track data.
I’m guessing they’re planning to tell the American people that a second Bush administration will change the direction of the country. Pretty cool.
The other interesting thing, and I’ve read this in numerous places so I’m inclined to believe it’s true, is that the Democrats have concluded that the American public has decided not to re-elect George Bush. Thus their job with Kerry is simply to make him acceptable, not “sell” him or his policies, etc.
I can see how they came to this conclusion, given the job approval ratings & the right track/wrong track data. I tend to think they’re right: I think probably a majority of people do want a change.
David Brooks had a fantastic line about how he never imagined how much this election would be like George Bush running for a 3rd term, not a second. Brooks says Bush’s enemies hate him as much as if he’d been in office 8 years and his friends are as exhausted as if they’d just been through 8 years themselves. (I love it!)
Plus Peggy Noonan had her fabulous column about people wanting a “return to normalcy,” followed up by Kaus’s “time out” (I love Kaus, byw) . . . so I think the Democrats’ analysis, on the face of it, is correct (IMO).
Anyway, at this point the picture gets murky for me, except that I believe, and agree with, Samuel when he says leadership is the heart of the matter.
If the Dems had nominated a man who felt like a leader, I think we’d be looking at a Democratic victory in November.
But they nominated a man who is so tongue-tied and grim he almost feels like an “anti-leader.”
Then throw in a whole convention about Vietnam to boot—it’s incredible. No one likes losing, ever. Even Noam Chomsky doesn’t like to lose, not on his own behalf, though he seems happy enough to see his country lose a war or two or three.
So Kerry chooses to spend his entire convention vividly, indelibly, and exclusively associating himself with the one war America has lost in his lifetime.
That’s really gonna move those leadership numbers.
Catherine, Someone has noticed Kerry’s chosen to associate himself with a military defeat.
Catherine,
Conservative pundits are of no higher utility than liberal pundits.
One small example. National politics (top of the ticket) is absolutely a team sport. The team is composed of all the players that have incurred a debt to the party leadership and/or the candidate. W spent more political capital in ’02 than any sitting president that I can think of and achieved extraordinarily good results for an off year election. He has stopped raising money for himself and is focusing on raising money for other Rep candidates. Quintessential team player.
Who in the DNC owes Lt. Kerry anything other than “Good morning.”? Gore had a helluva lot more owed to him than Kerry can conceive of. Hillary Clinton has raised more money and expended more political capital on behalf of others than anyone else in the elected Dem. ranks. She is absolutely setting the table for ’08 and she’s doing an excellent job at it.
Seen any analysis by either side concerning that? I read the pundits but I don’t give them much weight.
Catherine:
Here is a link to a Democratic spinmeister on the latest polling data. Forget the spin and look at the numbers. I think it supports my thesis on the Democrats smear campaign has irrevocably damaged the President. They have created in the minds of the voter an economy in depression, a failed needless war brought on by administration politicking and lies, and defeat in the GWOT. Kerry only needs to play rope-a-dope to win the election.
http://www.emergingdemocraticmajorityweblog.com/donkeyrising/archives/000583.php
I should have added that, as a Marine back then, I’m aware there was no military defeat. But I recognize that I hold the minority view. I still run into people who speak of Tet as a U.S. defeat. Those with that “knowledge” don’t know who Giap was nor do they know his opinion of his “victory”.
If the Dems were truly machiavellian, they would go after the Buchanan/Perot vote and play the isolationism card.
It’s obvious that a large part of the public is suffering battle fatigue, so a winning strategy for the Dems would be to praise limited interventions–like Afghanistan– to the hilt, and trash both the Iraq War and the non-”allies” and the UN.
At the same time, trash NAFTA, those evil outsourcers, drug companies, fatcats generally.
Right now, after three bruising years, the majority of Americans are probably more keen on withdrawal from the big bad world than on the long twilight struggle. The neo-cons’ vision is of national honor and national greatness. A country that flocks to see the vile agitprop peddled by Chomsky’s retarded little brother Mikey is not a nation that can be persuaded to step up to a vision of greatness.
Thank our lucky stars that the Dems’ strategists are too stupid to realize this. Or maybe they’re simply too deeply in the pocket of a certain Hungarian billionaire currency-trader?
Geez, Catherine. You knock out three hundred words while I’m still splitting my first infinitive (or dangling my first participle, depending).
BTW, internal polling numbers refer to results realized from a specific subset of the entire sample, i.e. single mothers who are also likely voters. The subsets are much more volatile (due to low sample size) than the entire poll response. It takes some real art (which I don’t possess) to accurately gauge internals.
Forward engagement in the big bad world is always a tough sell in America. Of those voters on the fence, while there are many highly intelligent ones, the majority are likely to be the kind of out-of-touch down-home types who respond favorably to Perot’s Mexico-bashing or Buchanan’s wog-bashing.
If the Dems figure this out, Bush will not stand a chance. When nations suffer battle fatigue, not even a Churchill can get re-elected.
Catherine,
I hope the “pivot” you mention becomes reality. Its time to raise the gradient on the WOT. I tend to believe that GWB backed off of active initiatives after the invasion of Iraq while strategizing how to reinvigorate the WOT near election time. Whether out of convenience or necessity, it may bring undecided voters onboard at just the right time.
Rick B.–
The crucial factor in Gore’s near-election was heavy black voter turnout due not to the nominee’s appeal, but a sense of gratitude towards Bill Clinton.
Kerry has an aloofness and anti-religious feel about him that I think will not serve him well in galvanizing this portion of the electorate. The states with large urban centers that could be thrown into the Bush column by poor black turnout are also the same battleground states everyone talks about: Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Missouri. Whether blacks show up to the polls will largely determine whether the election is a nail-biter or a 40-state Bush blowout.
The polls, as usual, are unreliable when turnout is such a critical factor.
Thibaud–
I think you overstate the climate in the U.S. How many of us actually knew someone KIA in Iraq or Afghanistan? Very different from Vietnam, for example. What sacrifices have ordinary American civilians had to make for the WoT? Virtually none.
The tiredness is due to the Democrat’s incessant harping on the subject and the MSM’s continual efforts to discredit the Bush administration.
TimJUtah
As I mentioned, I haven’t read Dereliction of Duty, but I assume his argument has to do with the political dimension of the war here at home as well as with the fighting in Vietnam itself. (I don’t know; I’m assuming.)
I’d be very surprised if he argues that Tet wasn’t a victory for us, or that the war wasn’t winnable given different military and political leadership.
For a variety of reasons I’ve come to see the Left, and the MSM media, as being much weaker than conservatives believe. The FT had an article a couple of weeks ago–which is currently missing here in the house; my husband told me about it–where the writer set out trying to find out just why so many Americans support George Bush & the war when the New York Times clearly does not support either.
So the guy went all around the country talking to people and found out no one reads the NYTIMES.
I know, of course, that Bernie Goldberg says local media base their stories on the TIMES, which I’m sure is true. But local reporters & journalists are less liberal as a group, and have to respond to the local market. So while the TIMES probably exercises a great deal of “agenda-setting” power over the local press, I think the TIMES has less influence over the slant.
WichitaBoy
As I see it, the problem with Kerry is Kerry. The way the message sounds to me is: “Vote for me, I’m a big strong anti-American war protester. (Did I say that out loud? Who turned the microphone on?!? I don’t turn microphones on!! I don’t fall, he pushed me!!!)”
I love it!
I guess my problem is, I JUST DON’T BELIEVE IT.
WHAT IS THAT GUY DOING UP THERE????
Vote for me, I’m a big strong war protester.
That needs to be on a bumper sticker.
JB
To put it plainly, Kerry is and will be perceived as not having a whole lot of faith in America.
This isn’t something that’s going to be gleaned precisely from any poll. But without it he isn’t going to be elected.
That comes across so strongly to me, too. (Another FT moment, or was it THE ECONOMIST?? The writer, trying to say what Kerry’s career had been about, said that he has spent his professional life criticizing America. Even reporters from overseas can see this.)
blogaddict
smarmy indecisiveness coupled with an off-putting arrogance
It’s really amazing, isn’t it?
asher813
Thanks for the recommendation—-I’ve actually been wanting to read something about Shrum.
Jerry
Fantastic anecdote! (My mom lives in Evanston.)
Stephen_M
Oh my god.
Everyone should click on Stephen’s link
OK, it’s screen grab time.
Catherine:
I grew up in Rogers Park, which is the City neighborhood just south of Evanston. It used to to be a nice place to live but it is the pits now. Ironically, my wife’s neighborhood, Milwaukee, Division and Ashland, was a pretty rough place when she grew up and it is fast becoming a prime area.
Rick B
Hillary Clinton has raised more money and expended more political capital on behalf of others than anyone else in the elected Dem. ranks. She is absolutely setting the table for ’08 and she’s doing an excellent job at it.
Seen any analysis by either side concerning that? I read the pundits but I don’t give them much weight.
I know, it’s weird.
Why don’t we have more writers with this kind of . . . inside(?) perspective.
Do you have anyone you recommend?
And thanks for the definition of internal polling data.
Jerry
Kerry only needs to play rope-a-dope to win the election.
Perfect!
I love it!
That’s what I was trying to say—-that’s apparently what they believe.
The Dems have done an excellent job of smearing Bush, although they’ve had plenty of help from the Bushies themselves (subject of previous contentious threads).
My favorite line on this was the WSJ, something like, “Who does the White House’s P.R., the guys who work for Michael Jackson?”
Stephen_M
But I recognize that I hold the minority view. I still run into people who speak of Tet as a U.S. defeat.
Absolutely.
I was stunned when I came across “Big Story” and discovered that Tet was a loss for the other guy.
Thibaud
It’s obvious that a large part of the public is suffering battle fatigue, so a winning strategy for the Dems would be to praise limited interventions–like Afghanistan– to the hilt, and trash both the Iraq War and the non-”allies” and the UN.
What a great thread this is!
That’s it—people have battle fatigue, whether or not they have relatives KIA in Afghanistan or Iraq.
People are exhausted from the constant threat since 9/11, and exhausted from the Culture Wars (I know I am), and I think it’s also true that any soldier’s death weighs on the rest of us. Every single time I see a photograph of a parent weeping over the coffin of his or her son, I start crying. Every single time.
I’ve thought–I don’t know this is right, but I’ve wondered–that one reason to oppose wars is to not have to feel that way. I don’t know how people who were against the war in Iraq feel when they see photographs of families who’ve lost soldiers, but I know I feel profoundly responsible because I supported the war so strongly, and still do.
I know I supported the cause and the action that brought their lives to this place.
Jerry (off-topic)
Rogers Park is down where you just drive into the city on Sheridan Avenue?
(Sorry all.)
Catherine:
…an “insider’s” book, not an outsider assault on the military… The war in Vietnam was not lost in the field, nor was it lost on the front pages of the New York Times or the college campuses. It was lost in Washington, D.C.
I no longer believe that the MSM has the power to lose a war.
I am not familiar with this book. Given your statement that it is an “insider” book, however, keep in mind that our military has developed a very sharp sense of not seeking out scapegoats and will have serious looks at how their performance could have and should have been better.
This is true, also, of our more sucessful corporations and can be found in “insiders” business and management books. Don’t blame the press or the stockholders or “world events” – figure out how and why YOU screwed up and don’t do it again.
Interestingly this same attitude is not present in our analyst/pundit classes. You’ll never find an analysts exploring how he arrived at a bad analysis – there will always be some scapegoat. Same is true of our pundits. Krugman will never revisit his failed analysis and if he does he will sacrifice an entire flock (herd?) of scapegoats to excuse the mistakes he made.
To those of us Vietnam Veterans with lots of ammunition about Kerry’s activity in Vietnam and the anti-war movement, the convention was both a slap in the face (he has never apologized for his many slurs against us) and a gift, because it means we may be able to help beat the SOB. Rich Lowry says to leave Vietnam alone. I doubt if he knows all the negative info out there, nor the fact that Kerry refuses to release the critical records (the military documents on his site are a selected subset).
TMJUtah did a pretty good job of summarizing Vietnam. A few extra points: the real energy behind the anti-war movement came from the draft. The idea that people would be snatched out of their comfy life when they graduated, handed an M-16 and dropped in a rice patty generated, needless to say, a lot of incentive to stop the whole adventure. It also resulted in lots of people staying in graduate school, and is probably one of the main reason that virulent anti-Americanism is so common in the humanities and churces (seminaries were good for draft deferments).
When the leftists forced the draft to move from its “channeling” approach to a fair lottery, thereby making sure it hit all economic classes equally, it became even more scary. My brother got #13, which was a guaranteed in – so he joined the Army Guard (without political influence or waiting).
My hacker friends (a group of us that has been together since hacker days at KU) went to work at Hughes Aircraft for the defense deferment.
According to Giap, after Tet ’68, the Communists planned to sue for peace, because Tet was such an incredible disaster for them. But when they saw how it was reported in the US (a big defeat for the US), they changed their tactics to breaking the US will to win ( See Arbaud de Borchgrave’s devastating article on Tet press coverge. Hence I think the press corps has the blood of about 20,000 American servicemen on it’s dirty hands. I have long disliked the MSM, and learning this one (recently) is one more reason.
Kerry cooperated with the enemy (literally, apparently – he visited them once and we think twice) in that strategy to the point that his picture is in a place of honor for foreigners who helped the Communists win [on the link, middle column, down aways, but don't miss the Donations button upper left
]. After two more failed offensives in ’68, the Viet Cong were eliminated and were never again a fighting force (they had never been indigenous – they were Viet Minh ordered to stay behind in the population exchange of the mid ’50s). Note that in the offensives, Giap expected the “liberated” people to rise up and join the VC, which is an example of believing your own BS – but the people didn’t rise up. If you read Giap’s biographies closely, it is clear that this “brilliant” General Giap was demoted after those offensives.
The loss in Vietnam was a direct result of Democratic Party betrayal. Frank Church (the same guy who wrecked the CIA a few years later) sponsored a bill forbidding any US combat support for Vietnam and cutting aid to the nub. The result is that when the North invaded (with twice as many divisions as our current army has), the South was demoralized and short on ammunition. The Nixon plan had been to maintain a standby capability of strategic bombing (as had worked to get the first treaty), but the Democrat congress cut the legs out from under the strategy.
So Kerry has hitched his fortune to his “heroic” acts in a war he so disapproved of that he led extremely dishonest protests giving the communist propaganda line, and viciously smearing his comrades in arms. Strangely, the “heroism” of his acts is strongly questioned by his fellow officers. One told me that every award was questionable. It is widely known in the veteran community that the first purple heart is bogus, having been turned down by the doctor and his CO. It was three purple hearts that allowed him to bail out early, the only swift boat sailor to leave short of a full tour except those who were carried out.
By the way, based on FBI and VVAW reports, there is reason to believe that Kerry protested the war purely for opportunistic reasons, and may not have had much of an ideology. However, his visit to the Sandinistas within 2 weeks of entering the Senate may indicate some fondness for communist dictatorships.
Somebody commented that South Vietnam was hardly a democracy. Unfortunately, the left’s insistence on perfect democracies caused many troubles. Korea wasn’t a democracy either. I was there in 1982 and it still wasn’t. But it is now. Vietnam could have made the same transition.
The important point is that the worst right wing dictatorship has more freedom than the best communist dictatorship. This idea may still escape the left, I’m not sure.
The Vietnamese People in 1972 had security, which is a big deal after decades of war and French colonialism. The US ambassador used to tour the country in a single car, no escort. It was that secure. To the people of Vietnam, things were damned good. When the communists took over, this was replaced by execution squads, reeducation camps (where many, many died and some are still there), and millions of boat people (an estimated 500,000 died just escaping the communists).
Catherine and others — Just to be clear, the Kerry/Edwards poster Stephen_M linked to is a Photoshop parody, not a real ad. I realize you probably figured that out but I want to be on the safe side.
America is a square nation. It is middle class, moderate, decent. It doesn’t “celebrate diversity.” But because it is decent it keeps its mouth shut, or grumbles, quietly, when being subjected to such garbage. It doesn’t take well to being haranged by a rabid racist demagogue. But it gives him a respectful hearing. It doesn’t enjoy being condescended to by a multilingual grande dame. But it listens, politely. It is utterly appalled at the spectacle of a twelve year old know-it-all kid criticizing the Vice President of the United States. But it makes allowances. It knows a hollow sham is a hollow sham and not a great man. But why say hurtful things?
In November America will speak.
I was one of the undecided voters that Kerry was trying capture with his speech. Considering the multiple themes running through this thread I’m going to have to zig-zag a bit to get to my conclusion. Sorry ’bout that.
Since Kerry dargged us back to Vietnam, I’ll start there. I’ve long thought that Conservatives mantra of the media and the politicians selling out the military in Vietnam is a gross rationalization. Two events did in that war effort. The first was the military command blowing sunshine up our posteriors over “the light at the end of the tunnel”. They badly undersold the Vietcong to support their policies. Tet was a disaster for the VC, but the scale of their attacks were far beyond what the military had led the public to believe they were capable off. It was a military victory, but the military’s packaging of the situation leading up to Tet turned it into a defeat. That wobbled public suppport, but it was a political mistake of the first order that kicked out the crutch of any support — the secret bombings. The public already believed they had been misled with Tet, and the effort to keep the bombing campaign secret from the US public was an absolute disaster. In short, two events in which the government was viewed as being dishonest derailed any chance in Vietnam.
This won’t play well with a lot of posters in here, but I consider Bush to be an extremely pedestrian President. In fact, calling him pedestrian may be giving him too much credit in my opinion. My main problem with Bush stem from how he is packaging the war effort. Now, I don’t believe he is being dishonest, but I do believe he is doing a poor job of articulating what his aims and broad strategy is in this war. As an example, in public debate the War on Terror is seperate from the War in Iraq. I think they’re one in the same, but Bush’s inability to take the rhetoric beyond his favorite phrase “they’re thugs and I’m gonna get ‘em” has allowed the other side to set the terms in the debate.
I think of Churchill’s “End of the beginning speech” at El-Alamein and compare it to Bush dropping his “long, hard war” rhetoric to the happy nonsense about “we’re safer today”. No, we’re in a difficult war — don’t repeat the “light at the end of the tunnel” sunshine. we can’t lose this war, but we sure can blunder it and make it bloodier.
As a result, the entire War on Terror has lost focus in the public’s mind, and I think that is a dangerous situation. Considering all that, I was an easy sell to any Democrat that came along. Kerry absolutely blew it with me. I didn’t care about his Swiftboat adventures or his homo-erotic relationship with his running mates hairdo. I wanted serious talk about how he would address the war. Instead, my jaw hung open as he promised to defend the US if it were attacked. My head spun around in circles when he took the Reserves off the table since they weren’t a backdoor draft (what does he think we’re paying them for?). Eh, 50,000 more troops he won’t deploy?
Bleh, I’m just sick to my stomache over this whole mess.
ambisinistral,
I think you gave a pretty good reprise of the politics of Vietnam. It was the coverups that did people in, no one likes to feel manipulated, and if they do, they lose trust in the leadership.
I agree with you that Bush is no Churchill or Roosevelt, that he is pretty inarticulate and does not stand up as a leader. However, I made my switch to Bush and the Republicans some months ago. The Democrats struck me as deeply unserious, spending their time spreading FUD. Kerry strikes me as plain weird and out of touch. And the MSM completely turns me off with biased articles and reporting. So there you go. Not much choice, really, from my point of view.
Speaking of deceptions, my father and stepmother are convinced we are in deep recession. Nevermind that her business is picking up, it’s just what they believe. Strange how folks can live in a world of manufactured facts without ever looking at reality. Wasn’t this a Boomer theme back in the 60′s? The human condition strikes again.
Ambi:
There are two reasons why the GWOT has lost focus. The nature of the war itself makes it hard for the public to keep it in their consciousness. It is a war in the shadows. The public does not get a sense of all the activities that go on in the fight. Since the objective is to stop things from happening, victories are non events. Second is the Democrat’s Copperhead-like campaign to discredit the war and the President. The MSM, where most people still get their news, has created the image in the public minds of an administration either flailing away in the dark without any effect or one that is hyping the non-existent threat. Bush cannot counter this line of argument because the war does not lend itself to a front constantly moving in on Berlin or Tokyo.
You, of course, are entitled to your opinions on Bush’s pedestrian nature but that itself is the product four years of MSM propaganda. Bush is neither stupid nor pedestrian. He is a regular guy. Many people make fun of his allegedly mediocre C+ gpa at Yale. I have news for you and anybody younger then 45. A C+ average would indicate the Bush was an above average student. He went to school before grade inflation took hold. The average grade at any first class university prior to 1970 was C. If you went to one of the so-called Public Ivy’s (like I did) 40% of the entering class flunked out in the first year and it wasn’t because they were stupid.
Bush was a History major when History was considered a real discipline. By comparison, Gore was journalism student and nearly flunked out of Harvard and Kerry was Poli Sci which was considered a easier major then History.
“Bush wins in a landslide on leadership (that’s probably an exaggeration) but he’s in big trouble on right track/wrong track. Huge numbers of Americans say we’re on the wrong track, and the figure doesn’t seem to budge (actually, I think it improved a bit in July, maybe).”
If a pollster were to call me up today and ask me if I thought we were on the right or wrong track, my answer would be wrong track–but not because of Bush. I’m fed up with the culture war, the MSM’s blatant bias, the Democratic Party’s sacrifice of country for power, the exaltation of victimhood over responsibility, the growing demonization of religion, the growing acceptibility that it’s okay to lie and cheat and steal as long as you can justify it in your own mind, the disaster that is our public education system, and on and on. Heck, even the fact there’s nothing on TV any more but reality shows.
So I’m not sure that “wrong track” necessarily correlates to a vote against Bush. Because I’d say wrong track and yet no power on earth is going to get me to vote for Kerry.
Ambisinistral:
Not meaning to appear to pile-on, but your comment about Dubya’s pedestrian nature is, I think, a function of the nature of current politics. It is reflected in recent choices for the Supreme Court.
Think about Churchill:
This was a man who drank heavily, spoke bluntly, who polished his words for speeches that lasted from minutes to hours. Cartoons of him from his days in Parliament show that he spoke all the time.
He was, in the ultimate sense, “larger than life.” And that would have doomed him in modern American politics. Because he had opinions, he would have left a paper trail. Because he had actually done things, he had a record.
Think of how his background, from helping to oppress minorities (see Sudan, Mahdi, Omdurman) to helping mastermind Gallipoli, would have disqualified him from higher office today. Even before drinking, smoking, and dismissing Gandhi as a “half-naked fakir” would’ve destroyed him.
We WANT non-entities, because then we can project ourselves onto them, and they have no feet of clay to be vulnerable to. John Kerry, for better or worse, is someone who’s the next best thing to having no record: a record for all seasons and all reasons.
Here is someone who thought about this ahead of time—going to Vietnam to serve in a war, knowing full well he didn’t support that war; throwing away somebody else’s medals while making the point that he had served honorably and with distinction.
Not to say Dubya’s pedestrian nature is any better—but that seems to be what we want—no personality.
Catherine,
Agree with your sentiments. Am totally secular (an atheist, to be exact) and yet detest the righteous on both sides of the cultural divide. I have fewer friends than I used to but also no longer waste any time at all on arguments with all and sundry.
Battle fatigue afflicts anyone who’s not fighting to defend his homeland. Lincoln faced the draft riots; W is facing discontent and a kind of media riot. Yes, Lincoln was also considered a rube, a baboon etc, but I don’t see much moral depth to Bush. Otherwise he would have acted swiftly to contain the Abu G mess before it became a media feeding frenzy.
We absolutely need a third party in this country, one that is pro-free trade and pro-military intervention abroad.
In other words, a party that’s resolutely in favor of global engagement, as opposed to the increasingly distinct whiff of isolationism I sense from both sides. Bush talks a lot about “peace” now– funny, but I don’t recall seeing UbL’s offer of a truce anywhere– and we can expect Kerry (if he’s smart) to soon start riding the anti-outsourcing and protectionist horse as hard as he can.
But I think there’s an odd alliance to be forged out of those who accept that we are, so to speak, in the world to be of the world: hawks of all economic backgrounds, free traders, and what will soon be the largest ethnic minority, Latinos. The latter favor trade agreements like NAFTA and could, I believe, be brought around to support a free-trade, hawkish party of fiscal conservatives in sufficiently large numbers to tip states like California, Arizona, NM, and Colorado to this new party.
If this party can appeal to enough new economy types in other states that have lots of foreign trade such as the Pacific Northwest, Texas, Florida, maybe also some of the mountain states and New England, then you have a nationally competitive movement. Call it the Opportunity Party. Free Trade and Opportunity for All! Opportunidad Para Todos!
Thibaud:
…I don’t see much moral depth to Bush. Otherwise he would have acted swiftly to contain the Abu G mess before it became a media feeding frenzy.
What has “Abu G” and the subsequent “media feeding frenzy” got to do with the “moral depth” of the president? I’m perplexed. “Abu G” was over and done with and being investigated and approaching prosecution by the time the media even paid attention. What, precisely, could or should the president have done wrt “Abu G” to demonstrate greater “moral depth”?
Thibaud–
If anyone is whipping the country into a frenzy, it’s the Left. A “media riot” (as you put it) is not a real riot. Marchers being arrested for not having a permit is not suppression of free speech. Enforcement of immigration laws is not the jackboot of fascism. George Bush is not Hitler. Cynical calls for the draft by Democrats are not equivalent to enacting a draft. Guantanamo is not the Gulag. Iraq is not Vietnam. And JFK is certainly not JFK.
ambi=left
I don’t think the lying by MACV (required by Johnson) prior to Tet can possibly excuse the behavior of the press. There is no excuse in reporting on a crushing victory and painting as a major defeat. None. Had Tet been reported honestly, the war would have been over. As De Borchgrave pointed out, soon after the event large numbers of critical documents were public which the press could have read. They didn’t.
As for the secret bombings, Nixon inherited a mess from Johnson. He had little domestic wiggle room, because Johnson, abetted by the anti-war movement, had destroyed government credibility. Nixon had to win the war, which he did. That it required secret bombings was because of the viciously hostile press and the anti-war movement. It was obvious that the way to win the war was to cut the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos and deny the NVA sanctuary in Cambodia. To not do either one was to simply expend American lives without winning. Nixon did both. Furthermore, he bombed Hanoi and mined the harbors. He came into office saying he would win, and he did. It was subsequently thrown away by Democrat Church and buddies.
For Kerry to run on his service in a war which his party forced us to lose (and I see no other way to look at it), and a war which he himself contributed to the climate that led to the loss, is bizarre. He is counting on the incorrect history that the press will drag up (they’re not going to admit to costing us the war in 1968). He is counting on the MSM suppressing the reports of the negative aspects of his in-country behavior and the effects of his anti-war behavior.
In General
One thing I wanted to mention in general – people talked about an echo chamber. What better echo chamber for Kennedy prime that Massachusetts? What better a place to fail to develop political skills as a democrat than there? If Kerry has a political tin ear, look where he spent the last couple of decades.
Knuck – let me be clear: I doubt that many of our leaders would have done a better job. And as one poster pointed out, Churchill made all kinds of colossal errors and yet is regarded as a great statesman.
The problem is, we no longer live in a world in which lesser military mistakes, moral or otherwise, are long hidden from view. Neither Lincoln nor Churchill nor any leader prior to this media-saturated century has faced anything like the constant scrutiny, or the rapid dispersion of embarrassing photos around the world via the web, that our current leader faces. So small screwups now can quickly become major debacles.
Given that we want to both extract crucial information from certain detainees AND maintain the moral high ground in this fight, any president must now walk a tightrope, and under the klieg lights. Maybe that strikes you as unfair, but that’s the way it is today. To change metaphors, the bar is set a lot higher than it was during the Cold War.
At a minimum, we need someone who can explain to us in clear English how he intends to do avoid torturing (and killing) innocent people; best would be a clear, succinct statement of what are and are not legitimate interrogation methods. This is ultimately the president’s responsibility–the call is made by the president, not his lawyers, not DefSec, not the NSA.
No matter how you want to spin it–and I’m as pro-Iraq War as anyone here– innocent people were tortured at AbuG and that should shame every American. The revelation of that torture was a major setback that should not have happened, and ultimate responsibility for its occurrence rests with POTUS. Sorry if that strikes you as unfair, but to me that’s what leadership means. It’s extremely important that
I do not believe that this would have happened on McCain’s watch if he were POTUS. As much as I detest Kerry, I doubt that it would have happened if he were in the White House. If Kerry were resolutely pro-war, then he’d probably have my vote. Please don’t pretend Bush is a leader of stature. He ain’t.
PS – I’m leaning toward Bush but haven’t committed. I think it helps, not hurts, the Bush partisans’ cause to admit mistakes when they occur and vow ot do better going forward. This was a pretty big mistake.
thibaud,
Now you’ve drifted into lala land. You present no causal link between Abu G and the president and no explanation as to why McCain or Kerry being president would have prevented it. This is “every sparrow that falls” irrationalism at its worst. One might hope for better.
I do not believe that this would have happened on McCain’s watch if he were POTUS. As much as I detest Kerry, I doubt that it would have happened if he were in the White House.
Now, that’s just silly. Sorry, Thibaud. The idea that the POTUS is intimately involved with the details of the command of a unit of the National Guard, or that those things happened because he failed to set out a moral example just boggles the mind.
Just to carry this further, was Roosevelt reponsible for the execution of German prisoners by some US soldiers? Don’t think such things happened? Get real.
penwil
If a pollster were to call me up today and ask me if I thought we were on the right or wrong track, my answer would be wrong track–but not because of Bush
I keep hoping that accounts for a hefty percentage of the wrong track answer.
I would probably answer “wrong track” myself, and I’m strongly pro-Bush.
Knucklehead
Given your statement that it is an “insider” book, however, keep in mind that our military has developed a very sharp sense of not seeking out scapegoats and will have serious looks at how their performance could have and should have been better.
Absolutely. That’s one of the things I admire about the military.
Allah
Well, Allah (and great blog, btw) I kinda figure that, coming from you, this was a Photoshop item.
Thibaud,
How on earth would ANY president have prevented a bunch of idiots from mistreating prisoners? Everything necessary was in place to let those dopes know that what they were doing was over the top. Not only did they know it but the were stupid enough to film it. Now they’re subject to prosecution and their commander’s career is over and, as far as I know, their probably still looking into whether or not she is criminally liable under the UCMJ.
I think the reaction to AG has been completely overwrought. Really bad behavior, discovered (apparently exposed by a soldier who knew it was wrong), investigated, and being prosecuted. The system worked, why is this still an issue?
Kerry tends to remind me of the scene in A Few Good Men, during the climactic cross-examination, where Col. Jessup says to the smarty pants lawyer, “Please tell you have something more, Lieutenant. Please tell me there’s an ace up your sleeve. These men’s lives are at stake.”
Kerry thinks the ace up his sleeve is Viet Nam, and the no-bounce factor shows that most think it’s more of a Jack, off suit. Please tell me you have something more, Lieutenant Kerry….
Of course, we all know how A Few Good Men turned out.
“Not meaning to appear to pile-on”
Sun-Tzu
Hehehe… who woulda thunk my “Pedestrian President” crack was going to get the reaction it did?
There some truth to what you say about the current press coverage making larger than life politians more difficult to eulogize, but — on the other hand — didn’t the Conservatives just get done eulogizing Regan as the larger than life, ender of the cold war?
If you like Bush that’s fine by me. I’m just stating that his inability to exploit the bully pulpit of the Presidency is very much a liabilty to me. The importance of this war has transcended my personal politics. I don’t care if a Democrat, a Republican, or whatever is the one that can get it done with the least amount of blood and heartache to all. I just want it handled as best as possible.
In this election I am frustrated by the choices. Because I call Bush pedestian does not mean I’m an ABB voter. I am frustrated, although not entirely surprised, the Democrats are so unserious about this war that they put forth a puff of wind as a candidate.
Oh well, ya play the hand you’re dealt.
Two points:
-U.S. wars usually last up to four years. We were in Vietnam for some twenty years with the hot war lasting some ten years.
-The anti-war movement was successful much because half the country was under the age of 25.
For a little background, I spent a year in Vietnam and was one of the soldiers at the Pentagon for that celebrated event in ’67.
jerry and Catherine have it, I think, exactly wrong. The months-long media assault on Bush hasn’t undermined people’s bottom-line sense of him, but has made them sufficiently confused not to poll for him at the moment. It’s like the trajectory of OIF support before we launched: very high when first put on the table, dropping down to around 50% during the UN quagmire/media assault, and back up near two-thirds on the eve of the event, after Bush had made his case. In their gut, the electorate knows that Bush’s tough course is right. They’ll flirt with Kerry early — pretending we’re in an easy world is fun, less stressful — but vote for Bush when push comes to shove. It takes an effort of will to resist MSM bullshit, which is why Bush has let the electorate tune out and will only prod them to their responsibilities come September (when he won’t be the only thing waking folks up). But then he’ll succeed: because not only right but the facts (good progress in Iraq, excellent economy) are on his side. And because Kerry is a terrible, terrible candidate.
As for why Kerry doesn’t go all isolationist, he can’t. The indispensable part of his coalition is the elite MSM, which is religiously tied to internationalism. He -could- have forged a coalition without the NYT, etc, but them backing out now would be fatal.
jerry,
Ah, I’ve been brainwashed by propoganda have I? Well, I certainly hope my handlers — be they ChiComs or Eeeeevil Business Men — don’t say the magic words that turn me into a crazed assassin.
Seriously, I don’t judge Bush by what school he went to or what his grades were anymore than I judge Kerry by only his four “glorious” months in Vietnam. Both are just datum points. I also happen to think that a large number of very bright people, judged in the rarified air of the Oval Office, would be found pedestrian.
I do agree that the nature of this war, which is not a conventional war of battles and moving fronts, makes it difficult to sustain momentum. I also agree with your Democrat Copper-heads remark. Much of what they’ve done or tolerated has been distressing to watch and hard to stomache.
Yet, I’ve been thinking about the great wartime leaders, primarily Lincoln and Roosevelt, and was has struck me is how both laid out a very clear vision of where they wanted the nation to be when their wars were over. They may not have understood how to get there, or even what the weight of the burden would be, but with a relentless clarity they sustained the public with their visions of the future.
Beyond, “we’re gonna get those thugs”, where are we headed?
John Moore–hi!
Rich Lowry says to leave Vietnam alone. I doubt if he knows all the negative info out there, nor the fact that Kerry refuses to release the critical records (the military documents on his site are a selected subset).
Well, this is one of those areas where I think conservatives may have a blind spot, though don’t take my word for it.
I keep mentioning how much conservatives loved the Vietnam footage . . . and I think that’s because conservatives just plain love our soldiers, end of story.
Plenty of liberals love our soldiers, too, but I think the relationship is sometimes more ambivalent (and I sincerely hope this doesn’t open up a whole new torrent of abuse-of-liberals. If you’re talking about Leftists, my feeling is: Fire away. But liberals are another story.)
There’s more to it than that.
Many, many baby boom liberals protested the war, got arrested in demonstrations, became C.O.s & did alternative service, etc. and while to a conservative those actions seem cowardly, and of course were cowardly compared to somebody getting shot at on a swift boat, they weren’t only that.
To understand what I think I’m saying, consider the fact that John Kerry, who knew he wanted to be president, didn’t have the stones to refuse to serve. I know the word “stones” is probably going to majorly tick-off conservatives here, as well as people who did serve in Vietnam, so I should say I’m sorry; that’s not what I mean to do. But I’m pretty sure what I’m saying about Kerry is true.
I don’t think this is going to be a positive line of thought to pursue, so I’ll just say that war protesters, back in the day, paid a price for being war protesters, and many of them knew they were paying a price, as did Kerry.
Kerry decided the price was too high.
Kerry didn’t want to be stuck in an academic ghetto for the rest of his life, let’s put it that way.
The other thing, in terms of whether or not to “stay away” from Vietnam, is the issue of John Kerry freely shooting civilians, assuming that’s true.
I think that’s just about the worst thing any moderate-to-liberal voter could hear about John Kerry.
I myself was repelled when I read Kerry’s superior officer saying he had Kerry transferred because Kerry was shooting too many civilians.
Bob Kerrey is untouchable because of whatever it was he was involved in in Vietnam, and he believed in the war. He wasn’t there as a career move.
John Kerry didn’t believe in the war, didn’t care one way or the other as far as we can tell who won or who lost, and he had to be transferred because he was shooting civilians.
My feeling, and I could be deeply wrong about this, is that folks like Rich Lowry are projecting their own feelings about Vietnam and our soldiers onto undecided voters who are not conservatives.
I might add that I don’t think most liberals and moderates are going to be scandalized by Kerry faking his war wounds. Think about it. Draft dodgers faked everything they could think of to get out of the draft!
BUT liberals and moderates need to know about this in order to believe that Kerry wasn’t sincere in his service. It’s the sincerity to the cause, and to the fighting, that is meaningful to liberals.
What liberals & some moderates will be offended by is the image of Kerry serving cynically, as a means to further his political ambitions, and shooting so many civilians his superior officer had him transferred out.
From the point of view of a liberal, and I think I can generalize, if Kerry genuinely believed the war was wrong (and remember, he gave a speech saying so before he enlisted) then he shouldn’t have shot one single civilian in Vietnam, ever.
So I’m wondering whether this is a case of “real” conservatives not knowing how the other half thinks.
Rich Lowry would be offended by an attack on the service of a candidate who fought in Vietnam.
But I’m not so sure most centrists or liberals would be offended by a valid, factually supported attack on the service of a candidate who fought in Vietnam & was transferred out for the reasons Kerry was apparently transferred out.
I know I wasn’t.
Y’all may be right that McC or Kerry would not have prevented idiots from torturing and killing innocents at Abu G, but I still believe that they could better explain our policy regarding torture than fumblemouth can. No need for a philosophical circle-j.; just a simple, concise statement, for those of us who care about winning the war AND maintaining the moral high ground, of what our torture policy is. That’s an eminently fair and reasonable demand.
As far as I’ve heard, Bush’s line is that the US doesn’t condone or support torture. Bullshit! Of course we do, and should, in certain well-defined and -circumscribed situations!
So tell us, please, more about those situations. I’m not an expert on this, but it strikes me as stupid, both as a matter of operating procedure and a matter of PR/international “law”, not to spell it out clearly. It’s not a secret, dirty war; in fact it’s a war under global klieg lights, and PR, though not determinative, is still important.
The worst possible approach is to BS your way along. It’s a deeply serious matter, and though it won’t sway my vote, it leaves Bush and Co wide open to the diplomatic incompetence charge and makes it more difficult for pro-Bush Americans like myself to defend the Iraq war. You do want to reduce your guy’s vulnerability on this score, don’t you?
ambi–”If you like Bush that’s fine by me. I’m just stating that his inability to exploit the bully pulpit of the Presidency is very much a liabilty to me. The importance of this war has transcended my personal politics. I don’t care if a Democrat, a Republican, or whatever is the one that can get it done with the least amount of blood and heartache to all. I just want it handled as best as possible.”
I think Bush is handicapped by three things in his ability to use the bully pulpit. First, he doesn’t have the natural charisma and oratorical skills of Ronald Reagan. Never underestimate the power of packaging to sell your product. Secondly, everytime he opens his mouth, the MSM puts such a negative, and sometimes downright vicious, spin on what he is saying that his bully pulpit winds up doing more harm to the situation than any good. Finally, the American psyche has become such that we are demanding omniscience and perfection out of our presidents. The bar has been set so high that failure is inevitable.
Bush has had some incredibly difficult decisions to make since 9/11. Decisions that would have paralyzed a lot of lesser men. I’m not sure even Reagan would have invaded Iraq, yet if that country does turn into a democratic force in the ME, it more than any bombs, or a Homeland Security office, or an intelligence czar, will be the thing that historians will look back on and say: the invasion of Iraq was the moment when the civilized world began to turn the tide against the rise of Islmofascism. As Leiberman said so eloquently, future generations will look on what we are trying to do in Iraq now and say, “this was our finest hour.” And without Bush, a democratic Iraq would never have been a thing even of the imagination, let alone a possible reality. Bush has done that–no one else (well, Blair, too) And he did it even though in the end it may end up costing him a second term.
And the fact that he must have known that he risked his second term on it, and yet he did it anyway, tells me all I need to know about the man. Bush has guts to do what he believes is right, and that’s what we need in a president in a post 9/11 world. All the rest is window dressing.
And in that vein I told my husband–who fought in Viet Nam, and for a full year, and during the Tet offensive, too–what John Moore said about Kerry having the habit of firing his weapon indescriminately, and my husband said that was a classic sign of a junior officer being scared out of his mind.
Thibaud:
Military disasters were no easier to cover up in the past then they are now. A young Australian newspaperman named Murdoch blew open the Gallipoli fiasco. Churchill resigned and then went to his regiment in France where commanded a battalion. Americans quickly learned about every Union defeat in the Civil War and the carnage in the Wilderness campaign as it happened. We did not withhold Bataan, MARKET GARDEN or the Ardennes from the public either.
Lincoln was not considered a great wartime leader in 1863. Roosevelt was a father figure beyond reproach. What is interesting about both is that neither had significant military experience. Lincoln, who was a much better Commander in Chief then Davis, spent three weeks on “active” duty during the Blackhawk war with Illinois militia. The closest Roosevelt got to war was Assistant Secretary of the Navy, a job that he was recommended for by a former incumbent who happened to be a relative. I would like to see someone, say Victor Davis Hanson, make a commericial for Bush pointing that out.
We had eight years of a babboon and snake oil salesman pretending to be president and feel your pain. When Kerry attempted to become a soldier on the battlefront, Even democrats headed for the exits. These are serious times, even the street bums know that. Clowns need not apply. Some geeks eventually blend in, but Kerry’s superior air leaves him standing out in Geekville. I say Bush by a landslide.
“Of course we do, and should, in certain well-defined and -circumscribed situations!”
Torture has never been and will never be condoneded as a policy of the United States. Perhaps you are confusing actions with policy. Certainly, torture has occured. When it occurs and is discovered the consequences for those involved are generally very severe. Rightfully so, in my opinion.
You’re introducing a topic here that doesn’t belong. This is my last reply to you on the subject of Abu G and torture. Others might wish to consider before replying. My apologies to other commenters for wandering off.
Yes, of course there are huge blunders in war, and of course the Civil War and reconstruction both had their share of disastrous blunders.
My point is that I want to know more about my nation’s policy regarding torture. I will cut my leader a great deal of slack on this so long as I know that the policy is well thought-out and can clearly guide us past the unacceptable extremes of torturing innocents and not getting needed information from terrorists or their sympathizers who have such info.
This is not the same as a battlefield screw-up like Gallipoli or Fredericksburg or the Wildnerness. These are policy decisions that should be clearly articulated to the nation. I’ve yet to hear anything like an intelligent discussion of same from Bush.
Again, not enough to cause me not to vote for him, but terribly important nonetheless, and troubling for the lack thereof.
JM,
Ambi=left? Oh brother (cut to shot of Ambi rolling his eyes).
I don’t believe the press was sitting around cafes in Saigon plotting the North Vietnamese victory. In my opinion that is verging on tinfoil hat territory.
I think you give reporters too much credit for wide ranging knowledge. Reporters are not soldiers, or tacticians, or strategans, or military historians — they’re journalist majors. Their job is to report what they think is going on around them (and yes, I know all reporters have their own built in bias). These reporters relied in getting accurate information from the military. Bad information reflected on their abilities as journalists.
In looking at what I wrote I implied too much that the rosey picture painted by MACV, and pushed by Johnson as you pointed out, was a deliberate deception. They probably believed a lot of it. None the less, when Tet broke it undermined their credibility.
It is disingenious to blame reporters for for the miscalculations of MACV and Johnson. When the reporters saw something that the military had said was not possible, then the trust was broken. Considering the resounding victory that Tet was, the confluence of events was tragic, but it was not premeditated treason. Unintended consequences.
The Secret Bombings were STUPID. Millions of American voters sat on their couches and asked themselves, “who are they keeping this secret from — the folks they’re dropping the bombs on or me?” The obvious answer to that question threw the country strongly into the anti-war camp. Today we are still cynical about the motives of our elected leaders. Unintended consequences.
Finally, declaring victory and skeedaddling is not victory. It is defeat. To believe it is victory is to onscure the lessons that can be drawn from it. Thankfully, our military has studied hard how to both fight unconventional wars and how to handle our press. The embedded reporters scheme was brilliant, and only went to pieces when the press isolated itself in Bahgdad Hotels during the peace. Another lesson to pinder.
As for your remarks about Kerry, on that we agree. However, being an old sailor, I would add a whole bunch of unkind cuss words to your description of him. Frankly, I doubt he’ll be able to keep the smoke and mirrors going, but one never knows.
Enough said on this. Back to topic.
Roger,
I have no interest in reading anything Morris says and why Kerry didn’t get a bounce, I lost interest in anything what he (I mean weasel) had to say months ago.
However, I would like to tell you that I like this format on your site right now, the black headlines and more ergonomic looking format much better!
Mike
LOL, now it just changed back to the Grey headlines and old format?
Mike
Thibaud:
Thibaud:
Abu Gi was against US policy and the UCMJ. A conscientious soldier in the unit brought attention to it and an investigation ensued resulting in the arrest and trial of the individuals involved. There are many procedural rules in the UCMJ that differ from civilian law but the presumption innocence is not one them nor is the Article 32 hearing (Grand Jury) open to public proceedings. There was coverup and there was no lying about it. There was no need for the President to make grand pronouncement because the Army was taking care of the situation through its normal procedures. Perhaps you wanted Bush to order the perps imprisoned with out trial. Would that give the sense that Bush has moral purpose?
You are correct that a Cold Harbor or a Market Garden was on same scale as Abu Gi you are correct. They far worse screw ups costing thousands of live.
Thibaud:
Where the country stands on torture is clear: we’re agin it. Where you stand seems a bit more nuanced. Please explain.
While I would agree that Catherine has put her finger on something here, I would argue that she has not gone far enough.
Sure Kerry spent his whole speech associating himself with the military and political defeat that was Viet Nam, however what was more important (at least to me) is that Kerry spent the entire convention associating himself with every loser (and I mean this in the literal sense) the Democratic Party could offer:
Ted Kennedy: Loser to Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter: Loser to Ronald Reagan
Al Gore: Loser to G.W. Bush
Howard Dean: Loser to John Kerry
John Edwards: Loser to John Kerry
Jesse Jackson: Loser to Al Sharpton
Add to the above mix an Al Sharpton who used his time to drive home the point (painfully) that the Democratic Party needed him and not vice versa, and you have
Terry McAuliffe: Loser to Al Sharpton
And of course this doesn’t even begin to encompass the impact of Michael Moore sitting with the Carters, Ozzy Osbourne singing “War Pigs” to the delegates, Dennis Kucinich being allowed in the door in the first place, or Howard Dean’s version of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”.
How could there be a bounce? There wasn’t a single young or supple or flexible moment the whole week…everything about that convention was old, stiff and brittle. You could practically smell the ‘Ben Gay’.
In fact, if you really want to draw a valid comparison, I would suggest you think Democratic National Convention and Rob Reiner’s “This Is Spinal Tap”.
Think about it; two groups close to a quarter of century past what little glory they once had, trying desperately to remain relevant so as to be able to sell their wares, but never quite getting it right. That convention was the equivalent of a ‘Spinal Tap’ concert…somebody stuck in a pod, a 2 foot tall Stonehenge, and finally, literally, half the band trying to play 25 year old Heavy Metal at the Officer’s Club.
Catherine Hi!
As to the price of protesting… most people that I knew or saw at protests paid zero price. Likewise, most were not CO’s. There was a small percentage who chose to become COs. Some became battlefield medics, and they have my greatest respect. A friend went to prison because he refused to serve but could not be a CO since his refusal was for one war. I have told him that I honor his choice and that it took courage. But the fact is that most demonstrators just demonstrated. No big deal. Saturday picnic. I don’t consider it cowardly to demonstrate where you may get beaten by police batons, but that just wasn’t the mainstream. That was Chicago ’68 and a few other cases.
I attended a couple of decent sized protests. I had friends who led them. I saw a big party – an adventure for most people, a chance to kick butt for the radicals, and that was about it. In one of them VVAW was marching. Maoists were there. La Raza was there. Communists were there. It was a smorgasboard of American leftism. And it took zero courage.
Refusing to serve took some courage for those who ended up with serious alternatives – prison, medic in ‘Nam. But refusing to serve and ending up doing some other alternate duty took no courage at all. Going to Canada, as a high school friend of mine did took no courage. Shooting oneself in the fleshy part of the leg, as another friend did, took some courage. It also got him out on a section 8. Being drafted took courage (although remember that most in Vietnam were volunteers).
There were many ways out. I knew someone who put acid on his feet and claimed a fungal infection at the physical. Another guy dropped his weight below the minimum (for him, that wasn’t hard). Those aren’t courageous.
However, to expect every male to serve is silly. That people found ways to get out doesn’t bother me today. Heck, I know too many people who did.
The issue of Kerry shooting civilians is a claim that I can’t absolutely hammer down. Remember that in 1996 Admiral Zumwalt and some others defended Kerry against charges he had committed war crimes. Shooting civilians, without having to, is a war crime. However, it is also true that fellow officers complained that Kerry treated a free fire zone as a place to shoot at everything. Hence, a bit of a mystery.
Bob Kerry is a subject best left completely alone.
Kerry did not fake his war wounds, as far as I know. The first wound was not a result of enemy fire, and therefore did not qualify for a purple heart, but he got one (later) for it anyway. The wound was a small scratch, with a piece of an M-79 grenade stuck in it. The doctor treated it with a band aid. The other awards are questionable (since he wrote up the citations himself). That isn’t the same as invalid, although if you read the citation for the silver star, you have to wonder why the award was given at all.
thibaud
As despicable as the actions at Abu Ghraib were, I experienced worse at boot camp and SERE school. In the latter part of the training was standing up to torture. You can imagine the final exam. I am tired of people being against Bush because he doesn’t say what you want. The guy is quite capable of fluency, but with Abu Ghraib, I think silence was the best policy. We had a single out of control military unit already under investigation. There was no there there.
As a result, we have been forced to renounce some effective means of torture. We are at war, and should understand that sometimes horrible things have to be done. If torturing someone would save your family, would you be against it? Is there the slightest reason for our torture policies to be given to the enemy, by giving them to our population? I remember back to my torture training, and say: absolutely not – surprise is a crucial technique. I disagree with Rick – sometimes torture is necessary – the less said the better.
ambisinistral
As a result of Tet, Cronkite turned against the war. He should have had the resources to find out if it was a defeat or not. As De Borchgrave points out, the information showing the truth about Tet was easily available, but the media never recanted. I don’t think the secret bombing was that big a problem – the trust was lost by Westmoreland, who was Johnson’s puppet, and Tet. Nixon was so constrained in his activities because of the lost of trust, especially as a result of the anti-war movement and the by then anti-war press which was continuing to skate on the Tet lie. The press has 20,000 American lives on their hands, along with millions of SE Asians. But Tet became the model, followed by Watergate. The MSM went from reporting the truth to looking for lies, and now they make them up when they cannot find them. If the press had simply double-checked Tet, using the information available to them, the war would have been over in 1968. Furthermore, if they had reported that aftre ’68 the only enemy forces in the South were from the North, it would have cut the moral underpinings from under those who supported the VC as an indigenous movement against an evil American puppet regime.
You say It’s a deeply serious matter. Is say, NONSENSE. It is a trivial matter, blown out of proportion by the ABB MSM.
DTP
You’ve got it!
How could there be a bounce? There wasn’t a single young or supple or flexible moment the whole week…everything about that convention was old, stiff and brittle. You could practically smell the ‘Ben Gay’.
Oh please, Dennis, I’m feeling old just reading this. Besides, my lumbago is acting up. Anyone on this blog under forty? Or is it just us old f*rts.
Speaking of stuck in the past, Doonesbury has to be the archetype.
OT: Roger, thought you might get a smile out of what Amazon recommended for me:
“Crimes Against Nature : How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy was released today; We thought you’d be interested because you bought Director’s Cut : A Moses Wine Novel.”
Roger,
I think you’re over-analyzing why Kerry didn’t get a bounce. I don’t think it has anything to do with his attempted Vietnamization of the election. The reason Kerry didn’t get a bounce is because he failed to offer a strategy to win the current war. Bush has a strategy and Kerry doesn’t. Its that simple.
People are smart enough to recognize that the Vietnam obsession is just a distraction from Kerry’s abysmal record on national security and his failure to offer a plan to defeat our current enemy. I’ve been having a lot of fun lately asking Kerry supporters what his strategy to win the war is. The blank faces and stammering are priceless.
I am not surprised. As I think I’ve argued here before, it is my view that the Dems. are completely misreading the dynamic of the election. This is not 1980 where the electorate is ready to reject the incumbent because the external condition of things is so terrible. In such a case, no challenger will lose. I think the undecided portion of the public, including a number of soft Kerry supporters are actually looking to vote for Bush. They want to support the incumbent in wartime. Most Americans are not that cynical about their leaders and want to respect them. This is why most incumbents are re-elected unless things are terrible. Bush needs to use his convention and the campaign to remind the public of what we’ve accomplished, why the battle of Iraq was just and necessary, how it is going to be won. He must admit small setbacks but explain how such is inevitable in wartime. His advertising will contrast Kerry’s record with his but the key to this campaign is not to pull down Kerry but to remind people why they supported him after 9/11. It is very doable and Kerry is a lousy candidate. I predict a solid Bush win and it won’t be that suspensful.
Donkeys do not bounce. At least not this year.
Wow! You all are having a great thread. However, slow down. There are still 90+ days before the fat lady sings.
There are promising signs, and worrisome ones. The polls go both ways. The editorialists are relentlessly ABB. The economy is net plus, but has negative signs that can be used. The WoT is net plus, but has negative signs that can be used. The Iraq situation is net plus, can still be read as not a part of the WoT and has negative signs.
Tracking is the best we can do, other than activism, until the orchestra warms up. Let us not diagnose failure, or declare victory, just yet.
Chuck-
Hey, I (at age 47), started Tae Kwon Do classes last Friday. While I have been thinking young, supple and flexible, what I have been doing is smelling ‘Ben Gay’.
Sure we’re at or about that part of the space/time continuum known as Old Fartdom, but that’s why you do things like Tae Kwon Do…it’s exercise to lose weight and teaches you how to kick a Lefty in the nuts fast and hard enough to avoid retaliation.
Remember, Age and Guide beat Youth, Innocence and a Bad Haircut.
Roger ó Echo chambers ó Do you think the MSM in New York, Washington, LA and other major cities buying so uncritically into the Dem spin is hurting the party? Granted, those of us supportive of Bush complain because our message isn’t getting out, but do you think the Democrats may be blinkered by the media acceptance, that their perception of the effectiveness of their spin may be distorted by so much uncritical and even willfully disingenous acceptance and repetition by the MSM? Really, how hard do you have to think about your message when Stephanopolous and Rather are trumpeting it for all they’re worth?
Survey USA released a poll today that has Kerry up 12 among likely voters in Pennsylvania.
What fun.
Goof ó As we should know by now, a flat statement like that is meaningless:
What is Survey USA?
Who commissioned the poll?
What is the breakdown of the poll sample, Democratic, Republican and Independent?
What were the questions asked? _ not paraphrases but the exact questions?
” Sure we’re at or about that part of the space/time continuum known as Old Fartdom, but that’s why you do things like Tae Kwon Do…it’s exercise to lose weight and teaches you how to kick a Lefty in the nuts fast and hard enough to avoid retaliation” — Dennis
LOL !!!!
Catherine – not only this –”The one thing I haven’t seen anywhere, though, and that makes me wish I were a political writer, is the fact that Kerry chose to spend an entire speech associating himself with a military defeat.–
He not only associated himself with it…
HE ACTIVELY HELPED the country be defeated and has voted to defeat the country since he was elected.
He met w/the VC while in the Naval Reserves, IIRC.
He met w/Ortega.
And I keep thinking about the Club for Growth’s ad.
Very insightful.
You should offer yourself to the Bush campaign.
rm
don’t know…don’t care…doesn’t matter…my point
roger
at least one thread based on poll results a week…please
what a smile
I believe the problem with the Democratic Party isn’t all that difficult to figure out.
The problem with the Democratic Party is that it remains the Party of Clinton, but without a Clinton standard bearer.
Hillary was the obvious preference of the delegates; had she given the go-ahead, she would have buried Kerry in a landslide. But in 2004, against an incumbent Republican president, the odds against her election were formidable. Better for Hillary to wait until 2008, when memories of impeachment and Travelgate might be dimmer.
Senator Kerry is a place-keeper, no more, no less. No one loves him. No one will take a political bullet for him. Senator K is boring, pompous, and aloof.
(Mark Steyn-Daily Telegraph 8/3/04 – That gives a whiff of condescension to his chant of “Help Is On The Way”, a slogan already a tad too crudely nanny-statish. On the other hand, it’s a very good catchphrase for Senator Kerry if he’s back at the 15th-century ski chalet in Idaho and Teresa is complaining because she rang for a Scotch five minutes ago. “Don’t be so impatient, lovie. The help is on the way.” )
But the press will cover for him, not only because he is a Massachussetts liberal, but also because without their 24-7 Kerryite boosterism, JFK would be 10 points down and dropping. That’s bad for the profit margin.
And all the little lies … -
An antiwar senator running on a lost war platform picks a former trial lawyer as a running mate while telling Big Business he’s the guy for them because he’ll raise their taxes, increase regulation and punish ‘Benedict Arnold’ corporations.
The coronation of Al Sharpton as the Voice Of The Black People without once mentioning the mayhem that man caused with the destruction of lives and property at Freddie’s Fashion Mart and Crown Heights. Oh, and the embarrassing tale of Tawana Brawley …
Michael Moore …
The hundreds of delegates that winked and nodded when Teddy recited the Pledge of Allegience which included the words ‘under God’. Yeah, buddy, that’ll fool those red necks watching Fox…
The hundreds of delegates that winked and nodded when JFK laid on thick his Rambo jive. Only thirty years ago he told Congress under oath that Vietnam was crawling with American war criminals. The crowd would have been ecstatic if JKF had invited Daniel Ortega to the convention.
And now Mickey Kaus seems confused that not enough American voters bought the lies and deceit for which Mickey paid $300. Flash – pal: You’re paying for Clinton’s party. This convention is Bill Clinton’s legacy.
Transcript Closing arguments by Republican chief counsel David Schippers
House Judiciary Committee hearing, December 10, 1998
“The president then has lied under oath in a civil deposition, lied under oath in a criminal grand jury. He lied to the people, he lied to his Cabinet, he lied to his top aides, and now he’s lied under oath to the Congress of the United States. There’s no one left to lie to.”
Just a quick comment re: a claim above (think it was ambi) about Lincoln and FDR laying out such a clear-cut case for war and being such effective war leaders.
How does ANYONE here, today, know how Lincoln’s “case for war” was perceived back when it was made? I assert we don’t. We read his speeches 130 years after the fact and say, wow, what a speaker! What great words! Given that there were riots galore and he couldn’t get McClellan to actually take the army and fight, perhaps the case he made was not as convincing then as it is now.
FDR wanted US entry into WWII long before he got it and it required Pearl Harbor to get the nation solidly behind him.
Neither man had to content with the age of televised speeches. Lincoln’s voice and speaking style would not likely have played well to a TV audience. His physical looks may well have played very badly. How would Roosevelt’s polio wracked body have effected Americans had they seen him give every speech on TV (not by today’s standards but by those of the time)?
Last, but not least, in their days people were more likely to read a candidates speeches rather than hear them. How many people stop and read the president’s speeches?
JMO, but we make WAY too much of presentation style and WAY too little of the words spoken. Try reading the speeches and see whether you find them convincing or not.
Presentation skills are all well and good, but I’ll rather have leadership without finely honed presentation skills than lack of leadership coming from a fabulous speaker. Others clearly have different priorities.
I have consistently maintained that Bush will win and that it will not be close. Absent significant bad news on the economy or Iraq, I stand by that view.
Kerry did nothing to dispel the notion that his party is fundamentally unserious about the war – which I believe is a war of existential proportions. A US defeat here could well mean the beginning of the end of Western Civilization. In their heart of hearts, Americans know this, and they will not vote for Kerry because of it.
If Kerry wants to run as a pro-war candidate, he needs his Sister Souljah moment with the left. Otherwise, he is just Bush-lite w/r/t the war. When push comes to shove, Americans know that a vote for Kerry is tantamount to walking away from the war. Don’t underestimate the importance of a belief system. Bush has a core set of beliefs, Kerry obviously doesn’t. This hurts Kerry. The Dems should have gone with Howard Dean – at least he believed in what he was saying.
Dennis,you are right on the money with your analogy of the Democratic Convention and Spinal Tap.A bit blasphemous but apt.The best joke is that everybody knows, except the band, who whirl on in their phantasy world.
Old Fartdom is not reached until you get over sixty,good god man you can do Tae Kwon Do,last time I tried that I fell off my zimmer frame!
Did anyone notice that Kerry saluted with his pinkey finger extended,I’ve not seen that since Benny Hill.
Since this thread has veered so far off topic, I won’t feel too bad about posting this.
Those who imagine that pictures of people in degrading poses constitute “torture” might want to go to this link.
It’s about a 25M download, so there is some pain. On the other hand, you will never afterwards be shocked by a photograph of somebody with panties on his head – so there is some gain as well.
http://www.aei.org/events/eventID.844/event_detail.asp
In South Vietnam we were saddled with a corrupt government installed by the French (insert French joke here).
We have no such impediment in Iraq. Much to our benefit.
PeterUK ó Hey with the Benny we got terrible jokes and women falling out of their dresses to kazoo music.
We’ve already had Kerry’s speech, no kazoo music, and you can’t keep Zsa Zsa sufficiently covered for me…
mrp,
The worst part about the whole impeachment episode is that the Rs branded Clinton as a liar.
So every time Clinton said “Osama” the Rs yelled “Wag the Dog” and proceeded to play Wag the Dick.
That Clinton sure fooled us. He was telling the truth.
Bush is getting my vote. But the Republicans are not blameless. Were Clinton’s lies more important than Osama?
mrp,
The problem with the Democratic Party is that it remains the Party of Clinton, but without a Clinton standard bearer.
I think you have it backwards. The Dems have abandoned Clintonism, but still put Clinton forward as their standard bearer. They point to the example of Clinton to demonstrate how centrist they are, but this is pure bait-and-switch.
After Clinton saw the electoral gods in 1994, he became a true centrist, and his party followed him. Since Clinton left office, the Democrats have veered HARD left to the point that they have become almost militantly socialist and authoritarian.
They are holding seminars on how to intimidate the media:
http://instapundit.com/archives/016976.php
They are monitoring church activity and using coercive measures to attack conservative congregations:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39596
And they are oppressing free speech on campus:
http://www.thefire.org/index.php
I could support a Democratic party that still embraced Clintonism. But this incarnation of the Democratic party has forsaken centrism and liberalism in favor of marxism/socialism. They are a threat to our freedom, security, heritage, nation, and Constitution. A Kerry victory will put us on the Road to Serfdom.
M. Simon
Vietnam and all the reasons we lost that war has been a popular topic in this thread. Many reasons have been given, and most of them are relevant. One item, in my opinion a very important item, is missing.
Richard Nixon was hated by the Left to a degree beyond even that directed towards George Bush. Nixon was distrusted even by many who supported his policies. I think a lot of what W. is catching (not all by any means) is the anguish felt by a Democratic party that no longer holds power in the federal executive and legislative branches. The loathing for Richard Nixon was visceral and personal.
Bill Clinton’s lies and deceptions were many. His most dangerous were not lies about sex with an intern, but lies about his relationships with people like: James and Mochtar Riady, Maria Hsia, Mark Middleton, Ron Brown, Ms. Konchanaluk, Johnny Chung, and firms like Loral and Hughes. There’s more, a lot more, but the campaign fund-raising stuff is bad enough.
Transferring one’s ditzy paramour (after smearing her as a ‘stalker’) to the Pentagon, where said squeeze was given a SCI clearance under peculiar circumstances deserved impeachment and conviction, in my opinion.
I quoted part of David Schipper’s testimony to Congress in a post above. Mr. Schipper’s list of the deceived was incomplete.
On July 7 of this year, Jim Lehrer interviewed Bill Clinton during that evening’s Newshour program. Here is an excerpt:
JIM LEHRER: Now, you mentioned this in your book, about–just for the record, one final question, and then we’ll move in. If you had, in that interview with me, said, “Yes, I did have an improper sexual relationship with this young women. I’m so sorry I did it. It was a terrible”–and all the things you say now about it–”It was a terrible mistake in judgment. It’s an awful, awful thing,” what do you think would have happened?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: I think that people would have said, “He probably committed perjury at his deposition,” which I maintain to the present day that I did not.
JIM LEHRER: But the allegation is that you did.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: That’s correct. And I think with–given the media hysteria and the fact that people were saying all the things that were said one more time, I was dead as could be, I think the overwhelming likelihood is that I would have been forced from office, because I think the Democrats would have–some Democrats might have abandoned me.
I’m not sure that would have happened, but I think–I thought at the time it was a realistic possibility. I think today it still was a realistic possibility. At least I thought it could occur.
HA
I respectfully disagree. Clinton’s Party in July 2004 is exactly the same party it was in January 2001: It is composed of the same trial lawyers, union chiefs, grievance lobbyists, environmental advocates, etc. DNC chairman Terry McCauliffe is still on board as well. The whole bunch were ideologically just as far Left then as they are today. The ONLY reason we see a whiff of their true beliefs is that they are shut out of the leadership positions in the executive and legislative branches of government. Bill Clinton governed as far to the Left as the people of this country would allow him. For instance, he vetoed welfare reform twice before the approaching election forced him to sign the third version.
M. Simon:
The worst part about the whole impeachment episode is that the Rs branded Clinton as a liar.
So every time Clinton said “Osama” the Rs yelled “Wag the Dog” and proceeded to play Wag the Dick.
That Clinton sure fooled us. He was telling the truth.
Bush is getting my vote. But the Republicans are not blameless. Were Clinton’s lies more important than Osama?
This thread has probably run its course and this point is moot at this late date, but…
Clinton branded himself a liar. He lied to the point of perjury. I suppose that somehow, someway, an argument can be made that this is somebody else’s fault – particularly the loathesome Republicans – but we had a president who wound up disbarred. His administration created the fog that everything functioned under. Clinton is often creditted with being an excellent communicator and yet… and yet…
it was Clinton himself, along with his administration, whe created the environment where what he was saying was no longer the issue and turned “the issue” into whether or not he was lying or trying to cover up lies. He obscured the issues with his actions.
And, wonder of wonders, this is what the Dems are trying to do to the current administration – change the “issues” from what is going on in the world and how we are responding to that into some sort of fog. The cannot win any good-faith argument that focuses on what is happening in the world so they need to work from bad-faith and change the focus of the arguments. These are the standard tactics used by those holding the weak hand.
Ambi:
You wrote:
It is disingenious to blame reporters for for the miscalculations of MACV and Johnson. When the reporters saw something that the military had said was not possible, then the trust was broken.
I am reminded of another battle. This occurred after the US had been in the war for three years, and was ostensibly winning. Days into the battle, the US Army suffered the worst defeat in that theater of operations, involving the surrender of two entire regiments, over 8000 men. In three years, no such mass surrender had EVER occurred.
US forces were thrown back by dozens of miles. It was so bad that there was genuine panic in US headquarters. Enemy saboteurs were reportedly everywhere, and even the in-theater commander had to go everywhere surrounded by guards in what was an ostensibly “secured” city. One US general, contrary to everything that had been reported the six months previously, warned, “We can still lose this war.”
How many heads rolled? Did the President have to deal with charges of lying to Congress and the American people?
Go take a look at the history and the contemporary press coverage of the Battle of the Bulge. The “defeated” German armies, which had been on the run since August, were able to launch a completely surprise offensive, and forced the surrender of teh bulk of the 106th Infantry Division. But the press did not act as though it was betrayed, that Ike had lied to them, that the Germans weren’t defeated, and there was no hounding of an American President out of office. (Ironically, the Nazi High Command had aimed to create just such a schism, in order to effect a separate peace.)
I’ve often been of the opinion that the press of today would have led to a separate peace (probably along the Rhine) if they’d been around in December 1944.
Mr. Tzu:
Let’s not forget the Battle of Savo Island. The second Pearl Harbor. What would today’s press do with one?
jerry:
Good example! However, Savo Island was when we still viewed the war as on a knife’s edge. Nobody thought/knew we were winning just yet.
I think Pelelieu (some still think that battle was unnecessary and a mistake) and Iwo Jima (thousands dead for an island whose strategic value was questionable) would be viewed as better examples in the Pacific Theater of the high command lying to the press and the American public (or be portrayed that way today).
Of late, I’ve also seen references to Korea as the counterpoint to Vietnam. The irony, of course, is that Korea was not (even as late as the 1980s) a democracy, the war was not being won (either when the Chinese intervened or later for three years along what became the DMZ), battles were fought for bits of geography of marginal tactical (as opposed to political) value. Most of all, it was not even clear that the South’s was the winning side (until the 1970s, the GDP was almost certainly higher in the industrialized north than the agrarian south). By Korea, of course, the press (see Izzy Stone) had already begun to argue that the entire enterprise was criminal, based on a lie, worthless, and that we were backing the wrong side.
And Harry Truman was certainly no FDR! (‘Course, Ike was an idiot, someone you might welcome as a grandfather or uncle, but hardly presidential material, especially next to the far more intellectual Stevenson.)
I should probably note, btw, that Iwo Jima, in the end, actually saved more lives than were lost. The number of crewmembers aboard B-29s that made it to Iwo, but probably would not have made it to Saipan, actually outnumbered total Marine/Navy casualties.
This is one of the calculus’ of war. But one wonders whether the press would allow one to make that argument today?
Mr Tzu:
The fixation on Presidential IQ is a rather recent development. The two Presidents with the highest IQs during my lifetime were kicked out of office. The records show Nixon may have had the have the highest IQ since Wilson and TR (143) while I do not know Carter’s IQ, I accept it as quite high. Kennedy on the other hand is all show and no go with a validated score of 119. Truman probably had a higher native intelligence the FDR. I don’t know about Ike but I bet he was in the 125-130 range. Ford was no slouch either. He finished at the top of his class and Michigan and Yale Law School. We all know now that Bush is in the same range as Ike. Gore is at besh no more intelligent the Bush and by academic performance probably is not as intelligent.
My guess is that the best Presidents have had IQs in the 10-130 range. With the execption of TR most of the really brilliant men to hold the office have been mediocre at best (Wilson,Nixon, Clinton) to disasters at worst (Jefferson, Carter, Hoover).
err should read 120-130 not 10-130
Back on the Donkey Bounce part of this thread.
An economic modeling view of the election. I’m not sure I can assert any more validity to this view than the polls, but it is another look. Also, a market view of the betting.
Chuck,
Like Alan Dershowitz I do not oppose torture in all cases. Also, I frankly couldn’t care less about the hazing that went on at AbuG. My point, again, is that there are circumstances where we indeed will torture suspects who have “ticking bomb”-style information that must be extracted if thousands of lives are to be saved.
And that under no circumstances should we torture– again, not frat-house hazing but shocks, beatings, and as happened in many cases at AbuG, actual killing– innocent suspects who have no “ticking-bomb” information to disclose.
Did we torture Khalid Muhammad, the mastermind of the 9/11 plot? Of course. Did we torture someone to get info that led us to Saddam’s spider-hole? Probably. Does that bother me? Only if innocent people with no links to, or crucial information about, the terrorists were tortured.
In short, we’re walking a tightrope. As I’ve said before, this is not a dirty war conducted in secret. Though Khalid M was probably taken to an aircraft carrier somewhere in Asia, the vast majority of those we interrogate will be in places where hostile media, the Red Cross et al are scrutinizing our actions.
You and I can decry the media circus all we like– I flip the dial every time NPR goes to a story about Lynndie or Mindy or Mork’s AbuG funhouse– but the fact is that PR is a crucial weapon in this war.
It would therefore greatly behoove us to clarify, for our own public and “a candid world”, how we intend to gather the information we need to defuse ticking bombs while still remaining on the side of the angels.
I support Bush (for the most part). Wouldn’t it be nice to be ahead of the media curve and on top the PR game for once? Is it too much to ask of our president and his men to apply some political skill, cunning, smoothness, and smarts to the PR side of this war?
Sorry, the above link to a graph doesn’t give the context.
Jerry,
FDR probably scored the lowest IQ of any recent president. Walter Lippmann, the brilliant journalist who was at Harvard at the same time as FDR, dismissed him prior to 1932 as a brainless upper-class playboy. Truman was also dismissed, like someone we know, as a fumblemouthed hick who was way out of his depth on the international scene.
Speaking of which, John Lewis Gaddis has to my mind provided the best analogy to our current Dem-Repub standoff regarding the international situation. He says it’s like the pre-Cold War period of 1946-47, when the opposition party (Repubs under Taft) took an isolationist tack, refusing to confront the changed international situation squarely and bitterly criticizing every move that Truman made.
Substitute Kerry for Dewey and Bush for Harry S.; maybe also Stalin for Saddam and the mujahiddin(ex-allies of convenience transformed into mortal enemies of the US).
The good news, of course, is that the isolationist Taftite Repubs were discredited pretty thoroughly by Stalin’s aggressive moves in Greece and Turkey in 1947, and the Repubs shortly thereafter inaugurated a period of cooperation with the Dems in fighting the Cold War that lasted for over two decades.
What will it take for today’s Taftite/Father Coughlin types in the Democratic Party to renounce their increasing isolationist drift?
Knucklehead and Sun Tzu,
Yes, both Lincoln and FDR faced opposition and suffered set backs in their wars. Ultimately, they rallied the people behind them with their leadership. That’s why they, and not Lyndon Johnson, are considered great war leaders.
I brought them up to illuminate today’s situation. Kerry is a weak candidate, so weak he gets no post convention bounce, yet he is running neck and neck with Bush at the moment.
Why?
People on the right have dredged up their conventional boogy man — the Mains Stream Media. I don’t agree. I’ve suggested that it has a lot to do with Bush’s own weak points as a President. In my opinion his prime weakness is his inability to articulate his broad strategy on the War on Terror. Considering the lesson of Tet — that you can win a battle and lose the war — that is frightning to me. Pretending he is a Churchill at the podium serves no purpose.
At any rate, he is the better of the two alternatives. One can only hope in his second term, if he has a second term, he finds a stronger voice than he’s shown so far.
Ambi:
I would suggest that you are reading your history with somewhat rosy glasses.
Lincoln was regularly pilloried in the press of his day. The Emancipation Proclamation was dismissed as an act of desperation and an invitation to race war. The Gettysburg Address was derided as an embarrassment (the preceding address that day had lasted several hours, and was held up as a far better example).
As late as September of 1864, iirc, Lincoln’s reelection was by no means guaranteed, whatever his leadership. It was the taking of Atlanta and Savannah, as well as Mobile Bay, far more than his leadership that guaranteed his reelection. (This is not to say his leadership was not important, just that it was certainly underappreciated at the time.)
As for FDR, the press loved him (except for Colonel McCormick’s Chicago Tribune, iirc). They colluded, frex, to hide his infirmity (notice no photographs of his legs in the day).
So, I (not speaking for Knuckle) cite FDR as an example of how the press can help you, even when things go badly. And in the current war, much of which is fought in the shadows, grappling with an amorphous opponent, things will often appear to be going badly. The Mobile Bays will be few. The Spotsylvania Courthouses (ultimately a Union victory, albeit extremely bloody and not appearing as much or such at the time) will be the norm.
Things that would have sunk a modern candidate (e.g., Pelelieu, Bulge, Iwo Jima) were not spoken of in the day. And the press has the ability to shape the appearance of leadership with its steady drumbeat of bad (or good) news.
Sun-Tzu,
You seem to be laying out an argument that the occupant of the Oval Office is less important to the prosecution of a war than the kindness, or lack of it, of the press. I believe one of the qualities of leadership is being able to handle the press. To speak directly to the American voters as for example Ronald Regan (ahem) did so often.
From what I know of your previous posting I can’t credit you’re really making such an argument. Perhaps we’re simply talking past each other because we have different opinions of Bush’s strength. I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree on this.
Ambi:
What I am arguing is that the impressions one has of the quality of leadership, and the press’ presentation of it, are almost divorced from each other.
We judge Lincoln by what the historians say, after the press savaging had dispersed. We judge FDR through lenses still somewhat tinted by the media. (Thus, it is amazing how few folks realize the extent to which FDR broke the laws of the time to support the UK. The right decision, as history turns out, but something that was not covered nearly as much as it should/could have been.)
Reagan is judged by conservatives almost independent of what the media had to say, and is judged by liberals mostly by what the media had to say (colored in each case by academics). Thus, the Left will point to both the divisions he created, his gaffes, his naps, as a BAD President, and the Right will point to his achievements (under debate as well from the Left) as a sign of his leadership.
Thus, the perception of leadership, and effectiveness of that leadership, is heavily influenced by the press coverage of the time. Obviously, if you’re an utterly ineffectual leader, even the best press cannot save you—but you can be fairly effective and have that effectiveness concealed for quite a period.
Truman and Ike, each dismissed by the press as incompetent, foolish, utterly lacking in nuance, are both seen today as far more effective leaders than they were in their day. That they had to wait 30-40 years for vindication and rehabilitation is my point regarding the impact of the press (not only in reporting, but in shaping interpretations of their effectiveness, both immediately and casting a penumbra into the future).
Is Bush an effective leader? Not as effective as FDR, and certainly not much of a public speaker. But as effective as Truman or Ike actually were? I think only future historians will be able to answer that.
(BTW, this applies to both sides of the aisle. Future historians may well conclude that Jimmy Carter, too, was an effective leader. I doubt it, but that may be my own biases shining through.)
ambisinistral
I don’t agree that the president is unable to articulate a justification for his policies. In my opinion he has given several excellent speeches doing just that; see the speech below.
It is true that the Bush administration does not handle the sound bite and the news cycle very well. Still, I think that is as much a judgement on the media (and on the people) as on Bush. If we as a people cannot process any thoughts longer than will fit on a bumper sticker, that is ultimately our problem, not the presidents.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/11/20031119-1.html
Sun and ambi both make good points, but I’m leaning toward Sun’s view because the nature of the press in the US has changed so radically during the past four years.
Take the so-called paper of record as the best example of our slide back into 19th-century style partisan journalism.
Pre-Howell Raines, the NYT truly was a paper of record– a newspaper rather than a views>paper, as Sullivan puts it. Sure, you’d get some liberal spin from the pre-Raines Times, but you’d also get a good-faith effort to highlight Clinton’s failings, to present context, to report polling data straight, and to avoid indulging in any kind of “black helicopter” conspiracy-mongering.
Today, assertions that terror warnings are motivated by politics are routinely dropped into news coverage; polling results are distorted; and frauds like Joe Wilson are touted as courageous champions of honesty in government.
Of course the press has its partisan edge. But never in the past thirty years have I seen the journalistic class so cavalier about proclaiming, and following, its biases as they do today. Increasingly, the left-leaning press in this nation views itself, like the UK press, as a virtual Opposition Party whose mission is to challenge the party in power rather than report on and analyze the political process.
Sun’s take is the right one. We won’t know for another twenty years whether W truly is a dunce or a Lincoln-style hedgehog.
Jerry:
My guess is that the best Presidents have had IQs in the 10-130 range.
I’m glad you corrected that – I was wondering if you’d bought into the cornerstone plank (I love mixed mataphors!) of the Democratic Party Platform; i.e, that Republican presidents such as Regean and Bush (41 & 43) have IQ’s, on their good days, of around 10.
With the execption of TR most of the really brilliant men to hold the office have been mediocre at best (Wilson,Nixon, Clinton) to disasters at worst (Jefferson, Carter, Hoover).
While we seem to agree on much we have arrived at very different conclusions from our reading of history. I cannot fathom how you (or anyone else) can lump Jefferson into the same category as Carter and Hoover. By the time Jefferson was finished as president we had paid off our enormous national debt, defeated the Barbary Pirates who had befuddled the World’s Powers for ages, completed the Lousiana Purchase, explored the continent to the Pacific, rid ourselves of the Alien and Sedition Act and survived in the geopolitical world of Napolean and Tallyrand and Pitt the Younger. If that is your idea of a disasterous presidency you have some very high standards indeed.
Thibaud:
It would therefore greatly behoove us to clarify, for our own public and “a candid world”, how we intend to gather the information we need to defuse ticking bombs while still remaining on the side of the angels.
I’m really at a loss regarding what words or message you expect, given your entire post on the topic, that could deliver this “gather this information we need to defuse ticking bombs while still remaining on the side of the angels” message. What is anyone supposed to stand up and say that believably skirts those extremes? “We will use whatever means necessary to extract whatever information necessary from whomever we believe may possess such information but we will not, under any circumstances, engage in torture – especially against those who we have locked up but otherwise know to be completely innocent of anything.”
I have not idea, not a clue, what verbal expression or standard of conduct could be communicated by a president or anyone else that would fit what you seem to demand.
Ambi:
This is my day of being even more clueless than normal…
Yes, both Lincoln and FDR faced opposition and suffered set backs in their wars. Ultimately, they rallied the people behind them with their leadership. That’s why they, and not Lyndon Johnson, are considered great war leaders.
Lincoln’s re-election was not the least bit certain, IIRC, and would likely not have happened if Grant had not secured a few key victories as it approached. This does not suggest that Lincoln was re-elected because of some case for war that he laid out. He was re-elected because the voters finally saw something that smelled like victory.
In FDR’s case he could not even convince the nation to go to war until Pearl Harbor happened. Then, after that, the conduct of the war was frequently questioned and all the top leaders received “hate mail” from mothers who had lost sons in what they judged to be “needless battles”.
We have nothing available to judge leaders while we are smack dab in the midst of a fight other than the evidence before our eyes and that is paltry at best. History and deep digging over decades is what places one leader on a pedestal and declares another a failure. Unless, of course, they are LBJ and recognize their own failure and decline to stand for re-election. We don’t know if the people would have rejected LBJ as a failed war leader (it seems likely) because he didn’t run.
You are, of course, free to judge Bush against the standards of Lincoln and FDR, but to make any honest assesment you need to approximate comparing apples to apples. Was Lincoln’s position approaching his re-election really more popular than Bush’s today? And what differences are there in the situation? We are not engaged in a civil war right now, we are engaged in a very different sort of war that some people cannot fathom no matter what case is laid out and some people refuse to fathom no matter what the president says.
We need to take some responsibility as citizens and, assuming one believes we are engaged in a necessary war (if one is convinced it is unnecessary than no rationale is going to sway one’s opinion), determine if what is happening has any of the look and feel of success.
If we are, indeed, engaged in a war against terroists and terrorism, have we had recognizeable success and, if so, is it the least bit obvious that we could have had significantly greater success? The answers I get are “yes” and “no”. There were no shortage of analysts who told us Afghanistan would be a vile, bloody, protracted mess. That made some sense. Everybody gets their ass kicked in Afghanistan. Well, we didn’t. It is not three years later and things there sure seem a hell of a lot better than they were on 9/12/2001 – at least from our perspective.
We heard no end of how terrible Iraq would be but also how we were bogging down, couldn’t possibly create a democracy, would cost thousands of US lives, civil war, and so on. Vietnam all over again. Well, it seems to have gone a whole lot better than Vietnam went. I recently saw some casualty numbers per 100,000 troops deployed. We’re running less than half the lowest figures we achieved in Vietnam and roughly 1/5 of the worst rates we saw in Vietnam. It seems to me that anyone who can’t look at Iraq and at least admit that perhaps things are moving in the right direction refuses to open their eyes. Problems aren’t the same thing as failure.
Expecting the nation to rally behind the president to some overwhelming extent (based upon what measure?) seems, well, silly to me. How can he possibly accomplish that? What words? The strategy is out there and can be looked up. It has been articulated in speeches. Its been layed out and executed and seems to be working. Afghanistan is out of the fight. Pakistan is nominally on our side. Libya – out of the terrorism business. Palis – killing each other rather than Isralis. Iraq – Saddam is out of the terrorism and adventurism game. Several other *ikistans have invited us in to help them get rid of their whackjobs. Phillipines – not entirely committed but at least occassionally waging the battle on their turf. Feckless and corrupt UN – on its heels and screaming bloody murder about everything except bloody murder.
AQ’s 12-18 month optempo schedule running 2X behind.
What more do people honestly expect? Is what people are looking for some warm glow of righteous conviction with no doubts and no setbacks so they can sally forth and feel aglow and superior when confronted by those who disagree? I don’t get it? There is no certainty, there’s only best guesses and analysis under difficult times with incomplete information. We need to pick a side and that apparently sucks for some people.
Knucklehead:
I place Jefferson in that category because after he whacked the Pirates he dismantled the Navy, instituted a self-blockade through the embargo acts which almost destroyed the economy. Attempted to appease the British over impressments without taking measures to ensure that Royal Navy would stop impressing American citizens from American ships even if they were indeed considered British subjects. His actions led us into the near suicide of the War of 1812.
At the end of his second term Jefferson agreed to wander off to Monticello to grow grapes instead of being impeached. Yes, he had good start but it was all down hill after Lewis and Clark and the Shores of Tripoli.
Knuckle,
“Lincoln’s re-election was not the least bit certain, IIRC, and would likely not have happened if Grant had not secured a few key victories as it approached.’
Well, that’s an easy one. Lincoln, being the fine war time leader he was, picked the right man to do the job he needed to get done. I do have to admit I’m rather surprized at the reaction I’ve gotten to holding up Lincoln as an example of a good wartime president — I hadn’t realized conservatives were so down on old Abe’s abilities. And yes, I understand that history won’t write its judgement of Bush for many decades.
However, all of those issues are getting rather far away from what I was trying to say in my original post in this thread. After listening to Kerry’s speech I dismissed him as a puff of wind (that’s several steps below pedestrian by the way). What struck me as curious was how such a poor candidate as Kerry could be in a virtual tie with Bush.
Many conservatives (and liberals too for that matter) explain any set back as being the media leading the noodleheaded public around by their noses. I disputed that using Vietnam as an example. I said underestimating the VC prior to Tet, and then the misscalculation of the Secret Bombing campaign, were both political mistakes that led to the break in trust between the leadership and public so vital in a Democracy.
Moving onto Bush/Kerry I opined that much of Bush’s problem is his inability to articulate his strategy. To define simply and convincingly the goal he is headed towards. One of the clearest signs of that problem is the seperation of the War in Iraq from the War on Terror. Allowing that seperation has allowed the Democrats to wave flags and talk tough against terrorism, while at the same time clobbering Bush over fighting terrorism. He’s allowed them to set the terms of the debate to his disadvantage. He’s allowed them to lead.
For the record, and I’ve said it in here before, I think the move into Iraq was a good move. I think it was bold to thrust into the heart of the Arab world and try to set up a vibrant democratic model for the Arab street to compare against the nihilism of terrorism.
If I think the President’s strategy is solid then why then am I so worked up and conflicted by this all? Because I know that victory can slip further away because of political mistakes. I look at Kerry not getting laughed off the stage when he buries 30 plus years of public mediocracy behind four months of dubious heroics and I see that victory slipping further away. That bothers me very much. I don’t expect every President to be a Lincoln, I do wish one of these two could rise above being a Franklin Pierce.
Ambi:
Nobody here is saying Lincoln was not a great wartime leader. We are just remindng you that this view was not univerally shared by his contempories.
Jerry:
Obviously you are no fan of Jefferson
I place Jefferson in that category because after he whacked the Pirates he dismantled the Navy, instituted a self-blockade through the embargo acts which almost destroyed the economy. Attempted to appease the British over impressments without taking measures to ensure that Royal Navy would stop impressing American citizens from American ships even if they were indeed considered British subjects. His actions led us into the near suicide of the War of 1812.
At the end of his second term Jefferson agreed to wander off to Monticello to grow grapes instead of being impeached. Yes, he had good start but it was all down hill after Lewis and Clark and the Shores of Tripoli.
Regarding some threat of impeachment which had Jefferson wandering off to “grow grapes”, I’ll have to await some cite from you for that. I’ve read a fair bit of Jefferson and the history of the times around him and I recall no serious threat of impeachment. In fact I quickly scanned a few of the Jefferson volumes I have and found nothing regarding impeachment threats. If there was such a threat and it happened near the end of his second term how serious a threat could it have been? There is no evidence whatsoever that I am aware of that Jefferson ever considered a third term.
But on to more substantive matters. Jefferson’s second term was without doubt not a particularly good one. If that is all we had to measure his presidency by one might easily lump him in with some list of failed presidents.
His second term is not, however, all we have to measure him by. And even in that light we must have some context. The impressment of US citizens was a matter that extended through several presidencies. As always we can latch onto any one president and place the blame for failing to solve the problem. If we do that, however, we have a whole lot of presidents we must condemn as failures. FDR, after all, had opportunities to solve the problems which led to war with Japan. Do we toss out all of his three terms and rate him a failure because of what he failed to accomplish in one term?
But back to impressment. The matter that brought the entire impressment issue to a head, IIRC, was the Chesapeake inciddent. This happened, again IIRC, at least half way through his second term. And it was not a particularly clear cut case. The Chesapeake had several (7 or 8?) members of its crew who were direct deserters from British warships and the claim to US citizenship of some of them, if not all, was shaky. The British attempted “diplomacy” to recover the sailors, diplomacy “failed” and the most powerful navy in the world took matters into their own hands. The US was not then in any position to fight off the British Navy. Jefferson did, however, respond to this incident with attempts to increase the strength of the US Navy. Too little, too late of course, but I don’t believe I or anyone else claims Jerfferson’s presidency was perfect.
There is no dobut the embargo acts were ill-concienved. But Jefferson was obsessed with removing the US from entanglement in the wars of Europe and he seems to have honestly (albeit mistakenly) believed that the US would develop the manufacturing and replace the trade either domestically or, at least, within the hemisphere. And that was at least partially true.
As for laying blame for the War of 1812 at Jefferson’s feet, you case there seems danged thin. The two presidents prior to Jefferson and the one following him also failed to solve the impressement issue. The war began after the treaty to prevent it was signed, its signature battle was fought after the treaty to end it was signed, and its hard to blame Jefferson for our inability to defend Washington DC four years after he slinked off to grow grapes as you suggest.
So, we’re left to judge Jefferson by the achievements of his entire presidency and not simply by the failures and difficulties of his second term. He entered office following an electoral catfight and with a nation at least as “divided” as at any point in our history. We faced very real risk of bankruptcy. European nations were active on the continent. He geopolitical opponents were the biggest of the Big Dogs of his times. And he had no significant sticks or collars of leashes with which to deal with those Big Dogs. He did so by pure guile.
When Jefferson entered office he faced a nearly bankrupt and badly divided nation with roughly half the population against him. The person who would have been president, had Jefferson not won, was Aaron Burr. Adams had come to almost hate Jefferson and on his way out nearly sabotaged the government. Jefferson, a man who had no public speaking skills worthy of the name and who hated public speaking the gave an inaugural address that calmed the nation (yo, people, read the speeches!). And he entered office at a time when we had barely escaped going to war with France (see the X, Y, Z affair of Adam’s administration).
He then went on to have a first term that was so monumental in its positive achievements that it is completely impossible to imagine the modern US without its successes. He managed, partly from luck but mostly from boldness, to get France out of the New World while simultaneously securing the communications and internal trade routes of the nation. The Louisiana Purchase cannot be misunderestimated as an event of astonishing magnitude.
Jefferson’s first term brought successes that are so profound in their impact in both scope and longevity that even if his second term had been a dismal failure the success would undoubtedly outwiegh the failure. Yet he managed to avoid going to war with either France or England (Napolean had plans to put significant forces into North America and, luckily, was foiled by the Hatian revolution and disease). In his second term he made some serious mistakes but the impact of those mistakes was transient and long since forgotten and even within those mistakes one can find a germ of long term benefit.
Now that I’ve gone so far as to hijack Roger’s bandwidth for this screed about American history, I might as well go whole hog and make the following assertions:
There are only three Founding Fathers who are completely indispensable. Without any one of these men there is no United States or Modern World that any of us would recognize. Those three are (in order of precedence):
- George Washington (nuhduh! No other person in the entire world could have pulled off what he did)
- Thomas Jefferson (OK Jefferson haters, tear into me)
- John Adams (his presidency was a near failure but he was a squeeking giant among men)
There are some others who are possibly indispensable (again, Knucklehead’s order of precedence):
- James Madison
- Alexander Hamilton
- Benjamin Franklin
- Dolly Madison
There is one person – just one – who I am sure would have destroyed the USA if he’d achieved even slightly more success:
- Aaron Burr
Last, but not least, is the oddest of all the assertions I’ll make before I finally shut up.
The single most fortuitous tragedy of early American history may be the duel between Burr and Hamilton. I can never get a good handle on Hamilton but he strikes me as the one person who was both nearly indispensable and might have destroyed.
Sorry, Roger, I went way overboard but there it is.
Ambi:
I join Jerry in this. I don’t believe that anyone is arguing that Lincoln was not a great wartime leader or that he is anything less than one of our greatest presidents. I wouldn’t even make that caser about FDR (even though I believe his legacy had more longevity than it deserved and has ultimately caused us grief). The argument is that neither was anywhere near unanimously or overwhelmingly perceived as great wartime leaders during the time they were leading the US.
knucklehead:
Jefferson virtually shut down the Navy after Barbary Pirates incident. A good case could be made that if he allowed the Federalist Navy to be built that the British would have been a lot more cautious in their dealings with the young United States over maritime issues. With Napoleon on the lose, particularly before Trafalger, the Royal Navy would have been deterred by a more robust us Naval capability. The RN certianly had the force to defeat such a Navy but not without creating an opportunity for Napoleon to exploit. The RN would not risk that to spank the US over impressment and trade.
Jerry,
I’m not arguing that any of you say is not “true”. I am arguing that they aren’t anywhere near strong enough to warrant rating Jefferson’s presidency with the muck at the bottom of the presidential barrel (you’re the one who ranked him with Carter and Hoover!).
Just some further points…
The Barbary Pirates thing was quite a bit more than and “incident”. And it demonstrates something very important if one wants to understand Jefferson’s thinking. The fact that he was willing to engage in the thing demonstrates that he was extremely bold when it came to US interests OUTSIDE of those directly tied to Europe. Where Europe was involved he was extremely cautious. He wanted no part of involving the US in European wars or to engage in a war with European powers.
We were a rinky-dink little nation specifically designed to escape European affairs and we were in constant danger of collapsing or being crushed by Europe. Jefferson was stuck with the cards in his hand in one of the most remarkable Big Dogs doggfights of the past 200 years.
A case can indeed be made that the US even then could have launched a campaign to become at least a regional Naval power. Jefferson was not one of the people who supported that case. Keep in mind that the notion of a standing Army (and Navy) was not popular with many Americans and Jefferson was in that political camp. A case can easily be made that this was the wrong camp on that issue, and people of the time made that case.
None of that, however, rises to the level of declaring Jefferson one of our worst presidents. You’ve latched on to one of several valid criticisms of his presidency but you haven’t, IMO, provided a case to condemn his presidency.
Good Grief, Jerry, you put the man with Carter ferkryinoutloud! You don’t really want to defend that position, do you? (Hint: doing so would be akin to trying to defendBurnside’s Crater at Petersburg from the bottom of it.)
Carter sure as shootin’ warn’t no Jefferson. Retract, you rogue, or I will be forced to cock the second barrel on the ol’ side-by-side scatter gun!
Knuclehead:
I give in…I will do the politically “moderate” thing to do and split the difference…I will move my opinion of TJ up to the middle of the pack.
Now, how do you rate Wilson?
Wilson! It would give me a stroke rating that dope! I rate Jeff near the top, easily top 5. Name a better year than 1803 than any president EVER had – ever. That year alone puts the ol’ grape grower in the hall of fame.
Wilson seems a middle of the pack sort in my view. I never found him particularly interesting and haven’t paid all that much attention to him. He managed our entry in WWI about as well as I suppose it could have been done. It seems to me he completely botched the Treaty of Versaille and the League of Nations. Which to me means he screwed the pooch on hi-impact, broad scope, extended longevity stuff. So maybe toward the bottom of the big middle half.
I think his whole “sef-determination” schtick, however, has gotten a worse rap than it deserves.
The whole bit about his wife running the country while he was on his deathbed is one of those things I’ve been meaning to research forever and probably never will. Didn’t we have a succession plan back then or was that why we wound up with the 25th? ammendment?
Knuckles & jerry,
I know nobody was really arguing that about Lincoln. I figured a bit of gentle lampoonery would steer the discussion back towards the substance of what I had tried to say.
BTW, speaking of discussion threads gone off the rails… I would rate Jefferson high, but I don’t think he was in the top ten. All in all, he made a much better Founding Father than a President. I’m not very high on Wilson. His big moment was the WWI Peace negotiations and he muffed it.
Well, this one has long since run off the rails and crashed through the forest and nobody knows where the heck it is anymore.
But we can probably dodge Roger since he’s paying attention upstairs rather than down here in the basement.
I wouldn’t mind hearing Top 10s… Keep in mind that I’m not rating by “these are the ones I agree with” – we don’t have to “like” them to acknowledge “greatness”.
There’s the easy and obvious (to me) ones like (in no order): GW, TR, FDR, Abe, TJ,… RR…
That’s only six. Even naming 10 indisputal greats is not a can of corn and takes some thought and some serious comparing and contrasting. There have only been 43, so top 10 is top quartile. Are you guys telling me you can’t fit TJ into the top 10? Put the effeminate Jacobin nonsense aside and get serious guys ;>
Top ten and bottom five. I’ll get to work on mine.
Why did I go and open my stupid mouth?!?!
Quickly done, not even certain what criteria should be used, could be argued in an out of 2 or 3 and relative ranking…
Top 10: GW, Abe, FDR, TJ, TR, Monroe, RR, Polk, Harry, Jackson
Bottom 5: Carter, Hoover, Grant, Pierce, Buchanan (there’s a whole lotta room at the bottom, isn’t there ;>)
BTW, I can’t fully escape personal prejudice with this. The only two on my list that I was “cognizant” of are RR and the Divinely Inspired House Builder. I just can’t imagine a worse president that Jimmy Boy and Regean was so infinitely superior that I can’t fully imagine the scale going much higher.
Bleh, harder than I thought…
1. Washington — built the executive branch and insured a peaceful transition of power.
2. Lincoln — preserved the Union and did not seek retribution in peace.
3. Monroe — lucked out due to English support, but the Monroe doctrine led to a relatively peaceful hemisphere to grow in.
4. Polk — his war was a blatant land grab, but that along with the Oregon issue settled the boundries for continental expansion.
5. TR — Aurther tried, but Teddy succeeded in Trust busting which was crucial for the growth of competitive capitalism
6. FDR — Expanded Federal government, with both the good and bad that brought along. Deferred to Churhill too much.
7. Truman — Marshal program
8. Eisenhower — never gets the credit he should for stabalizing the dangerous situation at the start of the cold war (what a run of Presidents by the way)
9. Jefferson — Eh, upon reflection he belongs in the top ten. The Lousianna Purchase set up expansion and the Monroe doctrine
10. JQ Adams — road and canal building is mundane, but it stuched the early nation together.
I struggled over Ronald Regan. I think he gets far too much credit for the collapse of the Soviet Union and he ran up too many debts. Plus, for some oddball reason, I’m a sucker for the Adams family.
38. McKinley — Footstool of the Robber Barons and embarassment of Spanish American War.
39. Harding — Corruption.
40. Grant — Love him as a general. Oblivious as a President
41. Franklin Pierce — reignited the slavery issue and saw the start of the proto civil war in Kansas.
42. Nixon — a victim of circumstances, but he badly damaged the reputation of the government.
Jerry Ford gave me problems, but his pardon of Nixon more than offset his pathetic WIN button economic policies. Besides, who could have succeeded in his situation?