Posted on 11/08/2004 9:37:29 AM PST by tpaine
The Antiwar Right Is Ready to Rumble
NY TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/07/weekinreview/07kirk.html? ex=1100877650&ei=1&en=1003a79efbe25be2
November 7, 2004 The Antiwar Right Is Ready to Rumble By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
ROUND 8 p.m. Tuesday, a gloomy mood was settling over the dozen conservative stalwarts gathered with martinis and glasses of red wine in an office in Arlington, Va., to watch the returns. Early exit polls showed President Bush trailing, and Richard Viguerie, dean of conservative direct mail, thought he knew who was to blame: the neoconservatives, the group associated with making the case for the invasion of Iraq.
"If he loses, they are going to have a bull's-eye on their back," Mr. Viguerie said.
Ronald Godwin, a top aide to Dr. Jerry Falwell, agreed. "I see a real battle for the Republican Party starting about Nov. 3," he said.
The euphoria of Mr. Bush's victory postponed the battle, but not for long. Now that Mr. Bush has secured re-election, some conservatives who say they held their tongues through the campaign season are speaking out against the neoconservatives, against the war and in favor of a speedy exit.
They argue that the war is a political liability to the Republican Party, but also that it runs counter to traditional conservatives' disdain for altruist interventions to make far-off parts of the world safe for American-style democracy. Their growing outspokenness recalls the dynamics of American politics before Vietnam, when Democrats first became identified as doves and Republicans hawks, suggesting to some the complicated political pressures facing the foreign policy of the second Bush administration.
"Clearly, the war in Iraq was a drag on votes, and it is threatening to the Bush coalition," said Grover Norquist president of Americans for Tax Reform and a strategist close to the administration who had not spoken up about the war's political costs before. He contended that the war reduced Mr. Bush's majority by 6 percentage points to 51 percent of the vote. Mr. Bush now has two years to "solve Iraq" to protect Republican candidates at the midterm elections, he said. His suggestions: withdrawing United States troops to safe citadels within Iraq or by "handing Falluja over to the Iraqis and saying, 'It's your headache.' "
On Thursday, Paul Weyrich, founder of the Heritage Foundation and chairman of the Free Congress Foundation, issued a call to conservatives for a serious debate about the administration's foreign policy. "The consequences of the neocons' adventure in Iraq are now all too clear," he said. "America is stuck in a guerrilla war with no end in sight. Our military is stretched too thin to respond to other threats. And our real enemies, nonstate organizations such as Al Qaeda, are benefiting from the Arab and Islamic backlash against our occupation of an Islamic country."
Proponents of the war, however, argued that Mr. Bush would not have won re-election without it because Americans did not want to change the commander in chief. "Bush's foreign policy decisions seem to have been exactly why he won this huge victory that he did," said the neoconservative David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He argued that candidates who opposed the war - Gov. Howard Dean the most, and Senator John Kerry to a lesser extent - suffered the biggest losses. IF the Democrats have silenced some of their loudest complaints about the war, however, some on the right said they were turning up the volume on their own previously muted objections.
"A lot of the antiwar conservatives had to hold their tongue during the campaign because the No. 1 goal was to get Bush re-elected," said Stephen Moore, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and an important conservative fund-raiser.
Even on the eve of the election, William F. Buckley Jr., founder of the National Review, was decorously edging closer to full-throated opposition to the war. "At War With What or Whom?'' was the headline of his column on Oct. 19.
A few months ago, Donald Devine, a vice chairman of the American Conservative Union, publicly apologized to Mr. Bush after it was reported that in disgust at the war he had failed to applaud a presidential speech. But in a column shortly before the election, Mr. Devine wrote that conservatives should vote for Mr. Bush precisely because he was likely to withdraw from Iraq sooner than Senator Kerry would.
Arguing that the president had dropped hints like a quickly retracted statement in a television interview about the impossibility of winning a war against terror, Mr. Devine argued that "the president's maddening repetition of slogans" about the war was the "only politically possible tactic for a candidate who has already made up his mind to leave at the earliest reasonable moment." He added: "The neoconservatives will be devastated."
But Trent Duffy, a White House spokesman, dismissed those theories, pointing to the president's statement in his post-election news conference that troops would stay in Iraq as long as needed: "Our commanders will have that which they need to complete their missions," the president said.
Not from clowns like you.
Nothng like a little media whisper to try to drive a wedge in the ake of a clear victory.
Nothing to see here.
Move along.
I'm late for my appointment with the TemplarNWOBidlerbergerMasons anyway...
dont give me orders!!
who are YOU to tell me anything??
you CONTROL your emotions about this fight, while our armed forces are on the ground, and maybe losing their lives... shame on you.....SHAME on you...
I don't think the President needs these suggestions. He's not planning on maintaining the status quo anyway. My guess is that he'll set up permanent military installations along the Irani border, far from the Iraqi civilian population, and he'll let the Iraqis run their own country after the election in January.
Well reasoned, but I see us remaining in the main bases we've established.
It's interesting, though, that the NY Times concocts this imaginary scenario where conservatives are about to jump ship. I don't think it's going to happen.
Neither do I, -- nor do most rational Freepers.
Learn to control your emotions.
I am not anti-war.
I've met plenty of Muslims. They're nice and friendly in the individual, and murderous in the majority. You may not share my view now, but eventually you will, of that I am completely confident. I once held your view, yet the endless savagery of Islam and the complete silence of the so-called "moderates" persuaded me to reassess.
The large majority of Iraqis are not radical Islamists.
Dream on that you can win their hearts & minds, spur.
Bob J wrote: I'm sure that keeps him up at night.
Does it keep you up at night bob?
Amusing reply in more ways than one.
Whatever.
When we see some logic from you, everyone will stop in wonder.
Because great powers do not chase people out of their countries.
Yours is the dumbest, most anti-American post I've read all day. And, the competition is fierce.
You have an apt name.
thank you
Your site turkey?
I was for the war initially but have cooled considerably. I hope some of these old-school conservatives can overcome the neocons. We need to get out of Iraq totally by the end of this year. I'm sick of the mess.
Anti-war right? LOL!
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