Posted on 08/22/2005 1:15:19 PM PDT by Crackingham
Malcolm Gladwell's 2002 best-selling book, 'The Tipping Point,' argued that under a combination of certain factors (outlined in blog form here), "radical change is more than a possibility." Some columnists and politicians from both parties are now wondering if the comments of leading Republican lawmakers like Sen. Chuck Hagel from Nebraska and others, and the actions of protester Cindy Sheehan, signal that the attitudes toward the war in Iraq are slowly, but surely, moving against the Bush administration.
Speaking Sunday on ABC-TV's 'This Week,' Sen. Hagel, who won two purple hearts in Vietnam and is also considered by some as a contender for the GOP presidential nomination in 2008, restated his position that the US needs to develop a strategy to leave Iraq.
"We should start figuring out how we get out of there," Hagel said on "This Week" on ABC. "But with this understanding, we cannot leave a vacuum that further destabilizes the Middle East. I think our involvement there has destabilized the Middle East. And the longer we stay there, I think the further destabilization will occur."
Hagel said "stay the course" is not a policy. "By any standard, when you analyze 2 1/2 years in Iraq … we're not winning," he said.
Hagel also "scoffed" at the idea, first put forward last week by top Army general Peter Schoomaker that in a "worst-case scenario," the US might have to maintain US troops levels of about 100,000 for at least the next four years.
Reuters reported last week that Hagel told reporters who had accompanied him on a tour of his home state, that he could see longtime supporters of the war beginning to have serious doubts.
"The feeling that I get back here, looking in the eyes of real people, where I knew where they were two years ago or a year ago – they've changed," he said. "These aren't people who ebb and flow on issues. These are rock solid, conservative Republicans who love their country, support the troops and support the president." Hagel said Bush faced a growing credibility gap. "The expectations that the president and his administration presented to the American people 2 1/2 years ago is not what the reality is today. That's presented the biggest credibility gap problem he's got," he said.
MSNBC reported that other GOP senators appearing on Sunday TV talk shows disagreed with Hagel's assessment that the US is losing the war in Iraq, but "also noted that the public is becoming more and more concerned and needs to be reassured."
Meanwhile, despite unrelenting criticism by supporters of the Bush administration, antiwar protester Cindy Sheehan (who was until recently was camped out near President Bush's summer home in Crawford, Texas), continues to "transfix the nation," writes Peter Beinart, editor of the New Republic and a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution. Mr. Beinart, who supported the war when it started, writes that the reason Ms. Sheehan is so successful is that she is the perfect symbol for the kind of war that is happening in Iraq.
In this era of the professional military, the war has affected many fewer people. And it is exposing cultural fissures not because Americans were asked to serve and refused, but because this time few Americans were even asked.
So a surrogate war has produced a surrogate antiwar movement. This time, mass protests would only cloud the issue. As the parent of a dead soldier, Sheehan has moral authority precisely because so few Americans (including so few of us who supported the war) risk sharing her plight.
Yes, they are shifting opinions. We all now know that Hagel isn't Presidential timber, at least he's not Republican Presidential timber.
Bullshit.
I absolutely think its having the opposite effect.
Sheehan has moral authority? He son volunteered!! If anything, she is a disgrace and a glory seeker at the expense of the death of her son in a nobel cause.
And just when, Sen. Hagel, was there ever stability in the Mid East?
Hagel is a Traitor..
Good point.
The folks at the Christian Science Monitor are not our friends. I remember some of the crap they put out last fall during the election.
I don't like throwing traitor around too much, but I wholeheartedly agree with you. His statements alone will cost the lives of more of our servicemen.
Actually I find his comments to be even worse than Sheehan's now...
Nah, he's just an idiot who is trying to get good in the eyes of the MSM because he thinks that is what will get him in the White House, and all the while he is neglecting the people back here in Nebraska who voted for him.
But, never again....
Sometimes these questions are just too painfully obvious that one wonders why they are never asked.
I know why... but more evidence why the MSM is losing its credibility by the second.
Second that !
To make an ass out herself and her dead son?
You're so right. And articles like this are nothing more than wishful thinkers asking aloud "Is it working? Is it working yet?"
My daughter was in the WTC in 1993 and lived.
My next door neighbor wasn't so lucky on 9-11.
Never found even a piece of him.
My cousin's son, a Navy seal, died while on R&R in the Ukraine on November 9, 2004.
I haven't lost a son.......but damn well have the moral authority of an outraged taxpayer.
I say bring everything to bear against the terrorists and denounce the traitors and appeasers in our midsts like Sheehan, Hagel, Kennedy and Dean!!
Cindy Sheehan: Maximum number of protesters she was able to gather is less than 500 in a nation of 300 million. WOW, these are really "changing the course of history" type of demonstrations (/end of sarcasm).
Chuch Hagel: The defeatist no body Republican Senator from Nebraska. This guy has as much chance as Satan in getting the Republican nomination for President.
Shitfitng of the public opinion: OK, go ahead and do biased polls and tell us that people do not support the war in Iraq. Believe your own lying polls as you did all year long in 2004 up to to 8:00 PM of November 2nd of that year and we will see where these polls will lead you.
The left wing liberals and their media whores are so insanely delusional and that is why they can never win again. I am very glad that they are our political opponents.
I think so too. Hope he can look himself in the mirror, and remember when he was on the receiving end of the protestors when he was in VN. what a jerk.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.