The Dems Blow it Again

Bush just gave a speech outlining the stunning successes of U.S. occupiers in Iraq. This is what the public wants to hear.

In recent days, Howard Dean and others have said outlandish things like "The U.S. can't win in Iraq." This is NOT what the public wants to hear.

[Most amusing: Some of the Republicans' leading pundits have been calling --in all seriousness-- for Dean to be tried for treason and executed. I'll write more about this later.]

The Democrats don't have a prayer in this fight, and here's why:

First, most of them were pansies when given the real chance to oppose the Bush war agenda a few years ago. They hemmed and hawed and danced around the issue.

Second, the Republicans will ALWAYS appear to be the stronger party in terms of military power. That's why Kerry blew it in '04 with his "I'm John Kerry and I'm reporting for duty" droolery.

Third, the Democrats' hands aren't clean on corporate and military-industrial complex influence, so they can't effectively criticize the Republicans on the way in which this war, and the entire "War on Terror" enterprise is being spun and manufactured by corporate interests. So the best the Dems can do is level this kind of half-assed panty-waste criticism that goes nowhere and doesn't really say anything.

Fourth, empirical appeals to the failure of the U.S. occupation will always be ineffective because the situation in Iraq, as complex and multi-layered as it is, can always be spun one way or the other, and there's more public support, more media money, and more grand narrative capital to be gained from the conclusion that things are going well there than from the conclusion that things are not. Moreover, by focusing on contingent failures (not enough troops, ooh look an explosion here, a few dead troops there), the Democrats merely give Bush the opportunity to fix those problems, to incrementally improve things. Of course it would be better if the Dems could criticize Bush on the PROCESS he used to make his decisions, but since the Dems are at least patsies and at most collaborators in that process, they lack the credibility to do so.

As much as all you Democrats hate Bush, he and his ilk will ultimately triumph on this issue--up to and including enduring next year's mid-term elections and probably placing another Republican in the White House in '08.

Don't blame this on the "stupidity" or complacency of the American public either. People are doing the best they can. They've been miseducated and thrown into economic and moral uncertainty. Both parties, beholden as they are to hierarchical economic interests, have a stake in an uninformed public.

The Republicans may be evil, but the Democrats are evil AND stupid. Which is worse?